












/. 









.^-^ V 






0^ ^. 









^^-^^ 



'<L cP .'f^"-. V A«^^ 

















' • » ' .u 

0°* 



-L< • • • 5 4 ' ->w J, 


















•o ^^^ A^ .^lQ^,% ^^, ..^ 



V » 






^^ 



v^. 






'a^ 



s.^' .. 




bv" 









'' '^^-..^^ .^i<Mb:^o v./ ^'^^^' ^- -^ *'^ 








THE AMERICAN AS HE IS 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

The Meaning of Education — The Macmillan Co., 
1898, xii + 230 pp., $1. 

True and False Democracy — The Macmillan Co., 
1907, xii + 111 pp., $1. 

Philosophy — Columbia University Press, 1908, 
27 pp., paper, 25p. 



THE AMERICAN AS HE IS 



BY 



NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

PbesidBx^t of Columbia University 



THE MACMIIXAN COMPANY 
1908 

All rights reserved 



\t)^^ 



LIBRARY ofCONGfitSs! 

Two Co;/:es Received 

NOV 24 IS08 

CLASS CV Wc. N,.| 



COPTEIGHT, 190S, 

Bt the macmillax compact. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 190S. 



JforiDOOli lirrss 

J. S. Cushini: Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



TO THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN 

WHOSE BENEFICENT ACTIVITY BEGAN 
BEFORE AMERICA WAS DISCOVERED 



The chapters of this book were delivered as Preface 
lectures before the University of Copenhagen in 
September, 1908, in response to the invitation of 
the Rector pnd Faculty of that University. 

It is not easy to speak dispassionately of the 
institutions and the civilization of one's own 
country. The most ardent patriot sees many 
things that he would improve ; the most detached 
critic feels many things that are surpassingly 
good. Only the historian of the future can hold 
the balance even between the strong and the weak 
aspects of a nation's life. My task was less am- 
bitious and less difficult. It was to respond as 
best I could to the invitation of a sister uni- 
versity, rich in years and in service to scholar- 
ship and to science, to set out some of the aspects 
of American life and to draw, in large lines, a 
picture of that part of present-day civilization 
which the world knows as American, 
[vii] 



Preface For a genuine understanding of the government 

and of the intellectual and moral temper of the 
people of the United States, one must know 
thoroughly and well the writings and speeches of 
three Americans, — Alexander Hamilton, Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Columbia University, 
October 20, 1908. 



Eviii] 



I Contents 

PAGE 

The American as a Political Type . . 1 
Unity of the American type — Persistence 
of the Anglo-Saxon impulse — Effect of inter- 
state migration — Influence of voluntary organ- 
izations of national scope — The newspaper 
press — The political parties — The govern- 
ment as a unifying force — Economic forces 
and the national life — Conservatism of the 
American people — The rule of the Constitu- 
tion — The Presidency — The Judiciary as an 
organ of government -^ A government of prin- 
ciples, not men. 

II 

The American apart from his Government 33 
The American in the domain of liberty — 
His self-reliance — The opportunities of Ameri- 
can life — Attitude toward money — The 
American's emotional temperament — Religion 
in American life — The Americans a Christian 
people — Religious freedom — High standards 
[ix] 



of business honor — The American in business ^^'^^ 

— The large corporations — The West as 
representative of the United States — The 
American as a citizen of the world — Possible 
dangers to American civilization — The warn- 
ing of Washington — The law-abiding spirit 

— The mob and the people. 

Ill 

The American and the Intellectual Life 65 
The basis of culture in America — The 
underlying Puritanism — The great Americans 

— Art and architecture — Scientific activity — 
Philosophy and the theoretical sciences — 
Place of reflection in American life — Popu- 
larity versus worth — Educational activity — 
Higher education — The American college — 
The American universities — The urban move- 
ment in America — New York as the national 
metropolis — The West — The South — The 
Pacific slope — The English language in 
America — American Uterature — The typical 
American. 



[^1 



THE AMERICAN AS A POLITICAL TYPE 



The truth is that the general genius of a govern- 
ment is all that can be substantially relied upon for 
permanent eflfects. Particular provisions, though not 
altogether useless, have far less virtue and efficiency 
than are commonly ascribed to them; and the want 
of them will never be, with men of sound discernment, 
a decisive objection to any plan which exhibits the 
leading characters of a good goverimaent. — Alexan- 
der Hamilton. 



THE AMERICAN AS A POLITICAL 
TYPE 

The most impressive fact in American life is The 
the substantial unity of view in regard to the American 

fundamental questions of government and of ^f /* ' 

litzcdt 
conduct among a population so large, distributed 

-Type 
over an area so wide, recruited from sources so 

many and so diverse, living under conditions so 
widely different. There is an American type 
of mind, complex not simple, discernible under- 
neath the many individual differences that vary- 
ing conditions of life, education, occupation, and 
climate have brought about. This unity amid 
so much diversity is itself a very impressive fact, 
and the causes that produced it are important 
to know. 

The first and chief cause is the extraordinary Persistence 
persistence of the Anglo-Saxon impulse, which Anglo-Saxon 
brought the United States of America into exist- ™P"i8e y^ 
[3] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



ence. For the origin of that impulse one must 
go back to the Teutonic quahties and character- 
istics of the people so admirably described by 
Tacitus in his Germania as propriam et sinceram 
et tantum sui similem gentem. It was in northern 
Europe, between the Vistula and the Rhine, two 
thousand years ago, that the impulse which finally 
made a areat nation on the North American con- 
tinent took its origin. It grew in strength as it 
was developed by conflict and by self-expression 
in institutions, local and national. In England 
it drew to itself elements from the Dane, the Nor- 
man, and the Frank, and welded them all into one. 
Throughout English history it struggled on, some- 
times checked, but never conquered, until it 
established parliamentary government, put limi- 
tations upon the once absolute monarchy, worked 
out a massive body of common law to regulate the 
dealings of man with man, and laid the founda- 
tions of an economic and industrial system in 
which every opportunity was accorded to indi- 
vidual initiative and in which individual excel- 
lence was protected in the possession of its gains. 
It distinguished liberty from license, and it grew 
[4] 



'litical 
Type 



to have a profound regard for law and order and The 

to prefer the rule of justice to that of might. American 

In America it laid the foundations of a democ- ^* ^ " 
racy which conformed to the fine definition of 
Pasteur, " Democracy," said he, " is that order 
in the state which permits each individual to 
put forth his utmost effort." It is this original 
Anglo-Saxon impulse which finds expression in 
the early colonial life of America, and which 
gives form alike to the Mayflower compact of 
1620, to the Declaration of Rights of 1765, to 
the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of 
Taking up Arms of 1775, to the Declaration of 
Independence of 1776, to the Ordinance for the 
Government of the Northwest Territory of 1787, 
and finally to the Constitution of the United 
States itself. This impulse persists to this day 
and is the underlying and controlling fact in 
American life. It has furnished the warp through 
which the shuttle of time and of changing events 
has carried the threads which are American 
history. 

Despite the large Irish, German, Slavic, Italian, 
Scandinavian, and Jewish additions to the original 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



American population, the Anglo-Saxon impulse 
holds its own. In America it is repeating on a 
larger scale the history of England, and it is 
drawing to itself support and strength from the 
other and varied nationalities that are there 
joined to it. The English language overrules 
the immigrant's native tongue, if not in the first 
generation, certainly in the second, and the 
English common law, with its statutory amend- 
ments and additions, displaces the immigrant's 
customs of life and trade with a rapidity that is 
truly astonishing. 

It would be hard to find under any single flag, 
individuals more widely different than the urban 
and urbane dweller on the Atlantic or Pacific 
seaboard, the easy-going Southern planter, the 
rude and rugged mountaineer of East Tennessee, 
and the restless and often turbulent plainsman; 
but common to them all is the English tongue 
and the sense of justice, fair play, and personal 
liberty which are at the bottom of the English 
common law. This is the first and chief cause 
of the unity which underlies the divergent 
American types. 

[61 



In addition to the persistence of this Anglo- The 

Saxon impulse, certain binding and unifying American 

forces have been at work in the United States ^^^ ^~ 

. ^ p 1 • litical 

for more than a century. One ot the most im- 

lype 
portant of these is the continuing interstate 

migration, which still goes on and which has built 

up the newer States and Territories on the lines Effect of 

of the older ones. States like New York, Ohio, migration 

Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and 

Tennessee have sent hundreds of thousands of 

the most ambitious of their youth to build up, 

first the Middle West, then the plains, and then 

the Pacific slope; California, Texas, Kansas, 

and Oklahoma are notable examples of great 

Commonwealths built up in this way. For the 

most part this interstate migration has taken place 

along east and west lines. Massachusetts and 

Vermont sent their pioneering elements to western 

New York and northern Ohio, and these in turn 

sent theirs to Illinois and Iowa, and then these 

sent theirs still farther west, for the most part 

along the same parallels of latitude. It is no 

unusual thing in America to find a family of which 

the grandparents live in New England or New 

[7] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



Influence 
of voluntary 
organizations 



York, the parents in the Middle West, and some 
or all of the children in the Rocky Mountain 
States or in Oklahoma or Texas. 

By the census of 1900 it was shown that twenty- 
one per cent of the total native-born element of 
the population had emigrated from the State 
or Territory in which they were born, and were 
found living in other States and Territories. It 
may be doubted whether any similar phenomenon 
is to be found in any other country. In a nation 
spread over so large an area as the United States 
it is plain that the influence of this large inter- 
state migration as a unifying force is very great. 

Still another influence which binds together the 
widely separated parts of the nation and assists 
the development of a common consciousness 
among the American people, is that exerted by the 
large number of important voluntary organiza- 
tions of various kinds that are national in scope 
and aim. The periodical meetings of these 
various voluntary organizations bring together 
representative men from all parts of the country, 
and through their exchange of ideas and personal 
friendships they act upon public opinion in many 
[8] 



ways, some of them hardly noticeable at the The 

time, but all of which assist in building up a American 

common national consciousness and a common ^^ ^ 

national interest. These voluntary organiza- 

Type 
tions are very numerous. The more important 

are those which are educational, religious, phil- 
anthropic, or scientific in character, but the 
influence of those whose purpose is merely social 
or fraternal is also too significant to be over- 
looked. 

Skill in organization and aptitude for it are very 
common among Americans. Their parliamentary 
procedure is well developed and generally under- 
stood by the people. Their voluntary organiza- 
tions are conducted in accordance with the estab- 
lished principles of parliamentary law, and 
these organizations provide an excellent training 
ground for many of those who afterwards rise to 
important places in public life. 

The Americans are great newspaper readers. The news- 
Nowhere else are so many newspapers published ^^^^ 
as in the United States. Of the sixty thousand 
newspapers now published in the world, nearly 
twenty thousand are published in the United 
[9] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



States. More than sixteen thousand of these 
are pubhshed once each week, and it is these 
weekly newspapers that penetrate into the re- 
motest hamlets, carrying a digest of the news of 
the world furnished by the well-organized press 
associations and newspaper syndicates. These 
weekly newspapers do not as a rule give so much 
space to news of a purely sensational nature or 
to the chronicle of vice and crime as do the daily 
newspapers of the large cities, whose numerous 
editions are eagerly read by hundreds of thousands 
of persons. With a few noteworthy exceptions, 
the best and most creditable American newspapers 
are to be found in cities of from fifty thousand 
to two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. 
Some of the larger cities are sadly lacking in 
daily newspapers that are in all respects worthy. 
As a rule, the American newspapers give a rela- 
tively large amount of space to foreign news, 
with the result that as a whole the American 
people are much better informed about foreign 
countries than the people of foreign countries 
are about them. 

The newspapers assist powerfully in building 
[10] 



a common national consciousness, because they The 
provide substantially the same food for reflection American 

to all the people. Their editorial discussions of ^^ ^ ^~ 

litical 

current events are, m very many cases, written 

lype 

by men of education and fine feeling, and abound 

in evidences of information and good judgment. 
Unfortunately, there are to be found in some of 
the large cities daily newspapers of a quite dif- 
ferent type. Their purpose is to exploit the 
people, either for gain or for the political advance- 
ment of their owners or managers. In order to 
exploit the people these newspapers must gain 
their ear. They do this, first, by appealing to 
the lower and baser feelings and instincts of their 
readers, by furnishing news or alleged news 
which either satisfies a prurient and unhealthy 
curiosity or excites envy, hatred, and malice tow- 
ard the conspicuous or the well-to-do; second, 
by claiming to perform — and occasionally by act- 
ually performing — a public service in connection 
with a law or administrative measure which has 
been proposed in the public interest, but which 
meets with the opposition of some privileged 
person or group. Having by these or similar 
[11] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



The political 
parties 



methods built up a large constituency, the con- 
ductors of these newspapers attempt to use their 
readers to serve their own or the newspaper's 
interest. Sometimes they are successful, but only 
temporarily so. Such deception and such selfish 
misuse of power cannot continue to be successful 
indefinitely. 

The critic of the American newspaper should 
not judge it by its worst examples. They are 
noisy, but not numerous. At its best, or even 
in its average, state, the American newspaper is 
conducted with sobriety and with a due sense of 
responsibility as an institution powerful for good 
or evil in a democratic community. It, too, is 
a unifying force of the highest importance in the 
nation. 

The two great political parties, the Republican 
and the Democratic, operate as a unifying force 
of the first magnitude. Nowhere else, save 
perhaps in Great Britain, is attachment to party 
name and party symbol so strong as in the United 
States. A party may wholly change its prin- 
ciples and its point of view, as, for example, the 
Democratic party has done since the candidacies 
[12] 



of Tilden in 1876 and of Cleveland in 1884, The 
1888, and 1892, — and yet the great mass of Demo- American 
crats continue to follow, year after year, the old ^^ ^ ~ 

lltZCdC 

name and the old symbol despite the changed 
leadership and the altered programme. This fact 
indicates that in the United States party member- 
ship and party loyalty are often more a matter 
of sentiment and association than of political 
conviction; and such indeed is the case. From 
habit and difference of temperament two men 
quite in accord on most political questions will 
frequently vote for opposing candidates and 
policies. 

Perhaps one in ten of the voting population — 
in some communities as many as one in five — 
hold themselves wholly aloof from party organ- 
ization and vote each year as their judgment at 
the moment dictates. They constitute the so- 
called independent vote, and as the power to 
determine the result of a given election is often 
in their hands, their support is more eagerly and 
more anxiously sought by party managers than 
these managers are always willing to admit. 

Nevertheless, the party organizations are very 
[13] 



litical 
Type 



The powerful, and of late years they have been gen- 

American erally recognized by law in the enactments of 
^^ ^ ^^~ the various States in regard to the supervision 
and control of elections and the steps preliminary 
thereto. Members of a given party organiza- 
tion are drawn closely together by interest and 
sympathy, no matter how far apart their homes 
may be. A prominent Democrat of Texas is 
a welcome guest of his fellow-partisans in New 
York or Massachusetts, and a distinguished 
Republican from Maine is greeted as an old and 
valued friend by the Republicans of Illinois or 
California. 

The great national conventions of the two 
parties, which meet once in four years to nomi- 
nate candidates for President and Vice-President 
and to adopt a declaration of principles — or 
platform, as it is called, — are the most charac- 
teristic gatherings known to American politics. 
They are wholly unknown to the Constitution 
and the laws, and their existence and importance 
illustrate very well the capacity of the American 
to adapt himself and his institutions to changed 
circumstances and conditions. By the terms of 
[14] 



the Constitution, the President and Vice-Presi- The 
dent were to be chosen, not by the voting masses American 
at all, but by electors chosen by the voters of the "* " " 

Lttl/CClt 

several States. It was the theory of the Consti- _ 

Type 
tution that these electors wpuld deliberate and 

select as President and Vice-President the per- 
sons in their judgment best fitted for these high 
offices. But after Andrew Jackson's time (1828- 
1836), when the presidency first took on the com- 
manding position that it has since occupied in 
American politics, the voting masses, in order to 
control the selection of the party candidates, 
developed the system of national nominating 
conventions, consisting of delegates chosen by 
the voters belonging to a given party in the 
several States. The choice of the party's nomi- 
nating convention then became morally obliga- 
tory upon the electors chosen by that party's 
voters. In this way, the electors — the Electoral 
College, as they are collectively known — lost 
their constitutional functions entirely, and they 
now register, in a purely perfunctory manner, 
the will of the party to which they belong. It is 
probable that before many years precisely the 
[15] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



same process will be gone through with as to the 
election of United States senators. Senators are 
now chosen by the several State legislatures, as 
the Constitution provides; but State conventions 
of delegates chosen by the voting masses are 
already assuming the right to dictate to the 
legislature a party candidate for senator, and 
before long the legislatures, or most of them, 
when they elect senators, will doubtless act quite 
as perfunctorily as the Electoral College does 
now. 

It is plain, therefore, that both as to the elec- 
tion of President and Vice-President and as to 
the election of senators, the people, operating 
through the parties and through the party organ- 
izations, have altered and are altering the pro- 
visions of the Constitution, without formal 
amendment, in a way that makes the choice of 
these high officers respond as directly as possible 
to the people's will. 

Moreover, the parties and the party organiza- 
tions have brought about a substantial uniform- 
ity of the forms of political action in all parts of 
the country. Even a specific legislative proposal, 
[16] 



as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



the principle of which is supported by a political The 
party for the time dominant, is likely to appear American 
in much the same form and language upon the 
statute books of several States. Since the party 
organizations are constantly at work, not only 
at times of election, but at all times, it is obvious 
that their part in developing a common national 
consciousness is a highly important one. 

The govcxument of the United States as estab- The govern- 
lished by the Constitution, and the progressive unifying 
development of the nation's political conscious- ^°^'^^ 
ness that has taken place under it, have exerted 
a steady pressure, for more than a hundred years, 
toward the making and the strengthening of a 
common national type and a common national 
point of view. Every appropriation of money by 
the Congress for a public building in a city or 
town, for the improvement of a river or harbor 
for purposes of navigation, for the extension of 
the postal service to rural districts, for the irriga- 
tion of arid lands in the West and Southwest, 
or for the beneficent work of the Department of 
Agriculture, leads the part immediately affected 
or benefited to lean more heavily upon the whole. ' 
[17] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



Circumstances have built in the United States a 
nation far more soHd, far more unified, and far 
more centraHzed than was thought to be possible 
when the Constitution was framed. 

The circumstances which have worked together 
to this end have been in no small part political, 
but they have also been in large part economic. 
As Professor Burgess has so convincingly shown, ^ 
the individual liberty of a citizen of the United 
States is national in its origin, content, and sanc- 
tion. One may think himself a Rhode Islander, 
a Virginian, or a Calif ornian first, and an Ameri- 
can afterwards, but if he analyzes carefully the 
question of his civil liberty, its guarantees, and its 
defender, he will soon find that he is primarily 
a citizen of the United States and that the Con- 
stitution of the United States is his ultimate pro- 
tector. It is this political fact which gives to the 
Constitution such supreme importance. If, like 
the French constitution, the Constitution of the 
United States merely created a government and 
prescribed the functions of its several parts, it 

* Burgess, Political Science and Constitutional Law 
(1890), 1:184 et seq. 

E18] 



would be a far less vital document than it really The 

is. But in addition to creating a government American 

and prescribing the functions of its several parts, ^^ ^ ^~ 

litzcdl 
the Constitution of the United States marks off ^ 

lype 
the field of civil liberty and guarantees the indi- 
vidual citizen against an invasion of his rights 
not only by another individual, but by the gov- 
ernment itself. This is the one particular char- 
acteristic in which the Constitution of the United 
States is superior to any other. It is also the 
particular characteristic which makes it difficult 
for a European student or critic to understand. 
Walter Bagehot, the English publicist, complained 
that he could not find whereabouts in the gov- 
ernment of the United States the sovereignty 
was placed. He could not find sovereignty in 
the American government simply because it is 
not there. The President is not sovereign, the 
Congress is not sovereign, the judiciary is not 
sovereign, all three together are not sovereign; 
their powers and duties are all marked out for 
them by the Constitution. The forty-six States 
which now compose the United States are none 
of them sovereign; they are all subject to the 
[19] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



Constitution of the United States, and to the laws 
and treaties enacted and adopted in accordance 
therewith. The sovereignty is not to be found 
in the Constitution or under it, but behind it. 
It is vested in the people of the United States, 
who adopted the Constitution, acting through 
conventions of the people in the several States, 
and who may, if they choose, alter and amend 
it in ways which they have provided in the Con- 
stitution itself. 

In other words, the government of the United 
States represents and controls but a part of the 
people's activities. Into the wide domain of 
the individual's civil liberty it may not enter, and 
that domain is a most important element of the 
life of the United States to-day. This explains 
why so much of the highest and best trained and 
most representative talent and ability of America 
are found outside of the government. The 
leaders of the country's education, bar, journalism, 
finance, commerce, and industry, not the govern- 
ment officials of the moment, are the most im- 
portant and the most influential factors in Ameri- 
can life. Only occasionally, as in the case of 
[20] 



Secretary Root or the late Governor Russell of The 
Massachusetts, or a very few leading members American 

of the Senate and the House of Representatives, ^^ * 

IxtxcciL 
do men of the highest intellectual and moral type 

Type 
enter the government service and remain in it. 

There are many reasons for this regrettable fact, 

but it is mentioned now only to emphasize the 

point that in America the words " governmental " 

and "public" are by no means interchangeable. 

In America many undertakings, many policies, 

many men, are in every true sense of the word 

public, in that they represent the public and rest 

upon its will, without having any direct relation 

to the government at all. 

Great, therefore, as is the unifying and uniting 
influence of the government of the United States, 
its policies and its activities, the unifying and 
uniting forces and influences outside of the gov- 
ernment are more numerous and more powerful 
still. They are educational, social, and economic, 
and they are ceaselessly and tirelessly at work. 

The provision of the Constitution that gave Economic 
to the Congress the power "to regulate commerce n^tionaMife * 
with foreign nations and among the several 
[21] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



States, and with the Indian tribes," has made it 
possible for the whole vast economic and indus- 
trial development of the nineteenth century to 
work directly toward uniting and unifying the 
American people. First water-power, then steam, 
then electricity; first roads, then canals, then 
railways; first individual manufacturers and 
traders, then companies, then huge corporations, 
have together brought about an industrial develop- 
ment and prosperity such as the world has never 
before seen. The statistics of agricultural pro- 
duction, of manufactures, and of transportation 
now reveal figures that are literally stupendous. 
The interstate commerce has risen to huge pro- 
portions. The tonnage passing the Sault Ste. 
Marie, the Detroit River, or the harbor of Buffalo, 
equals or exceeds that of ports like London, 
Liverpool, or Hamburg. The application of 
science to agriculture and mining steadily increases 
the return from these natural resources of the 
nation. Close study of the mechanical and 
financial problems connected with transportation 
steadily diminishes the cost and increases the 
safety of carrying goods from one part of the 
[22] 



country tb another. Wages have risen both ab- The 
solutely and relatively. The operation of the Avierican 

protective tariff, despite the just criticism that ^f ^ ^' 

, ,. , . p • p litical 

may be directed agamst some oi its teatures, 

1 ype 
has been on the whole very favorable to the up- 
building and the diversification of industry, to 
the raising of wages and increasing the steadiness 
of employment, and to securing satisfactory 
returns for capital embarked in new enterprises. 
While the tariff will certainly undergo needed 
revision in the near future, no considerable body 
of opinion in either political party proposes seri- 
ously to overthrow it, or to reverse a political 
and economic policy that has now lasted for 
nearly half a century. 

The American people are essentially conserva- Conservatism 

mi • p 1 i^ • • 1 ''^ ^^^ Ameri- 

tive. T-he persistence of the Constitution sub- can people 

stantially unchanged is proof of the nation's 

conservatism. The Constitution persists because 

its founders, with almost superhuman wisdom, 

made it really a Constitution — a document of 

underlying principles freed from attempts at their 

detailed application — and not a cods cf laws ; 

and because they made it conform to the settled 

[23] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



The rule 
of the Con- 
stitution 



habits of political thinking of the Anglo-Saxon 
colonists, who were the original builders of the 
nation. The moods and passions of a people, 
whether European or American, must never be 
permitted to overthrow the institutions which 
represent the historical development and ex- 
pression of their deepest convictions. So the 
Constitution, interpreted by the judiciary, stands 
as sentinel over the hard-won civil liberty of the 
American branch of the Anglo-Saxon people 
and those others who have joined them, and 
prevents a passing wave of opinion, which com- 
mands a temporary majority, from subverting 
or damaging the foundations of the whole polit- 
ical structure. 

Sometimes the superficial observer or the im- 
patient advocate of a new proposal complains 
that the Constitution prevents genuinely popular 
government because of the fact that the limita- 
tions it imposes prevent his having his way. 
Such an one does not understand what the Con- 
stitution is or what popular government really 
means in the case of a great civilized people with 
civil liberty to protect and a part to play in the 
[24] 



progress of the world's life. For America at The 

least it is the Constitution that makes genuinely American 

as a Po- 



litical 
Type 



popular government possible, and that protects 
the people from the rule of the changing, the fickle, 
and the cruel mob. 

It is an error to liken the position of the Presi- The Presi- 
dent of the United States to that of a sovereign 
in a constitutional monarchy. In a constitu- 
tional monarchy, the king holds an office ; he is 
a sovereign only in name. The king is generally, 
in form at least, a part of the executive branch 
of the government, the other part being exercised 
by the prime minister or president of the council. 
This part of the executive power is closely related 
to, and often made by the constitution of the 
country dependent upon, the legislature. In 
the United States, conditions are quite different. 
The President is an organ of government, and 
he directly represents the sovereign people who 
choose him. He is entirely independent of the 
legislature, save through the process of impeach- 
ment. His powers and duties are those which 
the Constitution prescribes. He is not a kmg or 
the successor of kings. He is the nation's chief 
[25] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



executive, separated by the terms of the Consti- 
tution from the nation's legislature, the Congress, 
as well as from the nation's judiciary, the United 
States Supreme Court and the inferior federal 
tribunals. 

Therefore, a controversy between the President 
and the Congress is not parallel to a controversy 
between an absolute monarch and the legislature 
of his country, in which the representatives of 
the people are all on one side. It is a controversy 
between two of the people's representatives. 
The history of American politics shows clearly 
how thoroughly the people regard the President 
as their direct representative. At first this was 
not the case. More interest was taken in the 
election of Congressmen than in the election of a 
President. The controlling groups in the Con- 
gress really chose the early Presidents. At the 
election of 1820, when the slavery debates were 
in their early stages and when the whole country 
was enormously interested in them, only seven- 
teen votes for President were cast in the city of 
Richmond, Virginia, which at that time had a 
population of more than twelve thousand. After 
[26] 



Andrew Jackson's time (1828-1836), however, The 
there came a change, and for many years past American 
the popular interest has centred in the election ^^ ^ ' 

lltXCCLt 

of the President. Without the President's co- _, 

iype 
operation and without the President's initiative 

no party can hope to carry its policies into effect, 
even if it has a large majority in the Congress. 
The power of the presidential office has steadily 
increased, not in opposition to the will of the 
people, but because of their will and their confi- 
dence in the presidents of their choosing. 

A word must be added in explanation of the The judiciary 
independent and highly important position of the government 
judiciary under t^ie Constitution. "The judicial 
department," said John Marshall in the Vir- 
ginia Convention of 1829, "comes home in its 
effect to every man's fireside: it passes on his 
property, his reputation, his life, his all. Is it 
not to the last degree important that he (the 
judge) should be rendered perfectly and com- 
pletely independent, with nothing to control him 
but God and his conscience ? " " 

^ Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Conveu' 
lion of 1829-30, p. 616. 

[27] 



as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



The In England, and generally elsewhere, the judi- 

American cial power is subordinate to the legislative, and 
as Chief Justice Taney remarked, the English 
courts must enforce an act of Parliament even 
if they believe that act to conflict with Magna 
Charta or the Petition of Rights. In the United 
States this is not the case. The Congress has 
only those powers that are delegated to it in the 
Constitution. The Federal courts, on the other 
hand, possess the full judicial power of the nation, 
unlimited and untrammelled, which power the 
Congress cannot invade or diminish. The Fed- 
eral courts, therefore, have the right to determine 
whether or not the Congress has exceeded its 
powers in any given case. If they find that it 
has done so, the act in question is at once void 
and of no effect, because contrary to the Con- 
stitution. So the courts, too, as well as the 
President and the Congress, represent the people 
of the United States. They are not merely a 
part of the nation's administrative machinery, 
but, like the President and the Congress, they are 
an independent organ of government. 

Most completely of all the organs of govern- 
[28] 



ment the courts represent the settled habits of The 
thinking of the American people. A President American 
may be, and at times is, powerfully influenced ^^ ^ ' 
by the passions and clamor of the moment. The 
Federal courts are much less likely to be so 
influenced. The Congress may be stampeded by 
a popular outcry into passing some crude or 
unjust act. The Federal courts are there, in 
all their majesty, to decide whether the popular 
outcry has ^ asked for and obtained something 
which runs counter to the constitutional guaran- 
tees of civil liberty and to the division of powers 
between nation and States. If so, the popu- 
lar clamor cannot have what it thinks it 
wants. To override the . Constitution would be ' 
revolution; orderly and rational change in its 
provisions can only take place by revision or 
amendment. 

Here we come upon the one most marked A government 

, , . • . , . , • • (. 1 A • of principles, 

and distmguishmg characteristic oi the American ^^^ ^^^ 

form of government. Every immediate demand 

for political action is tested as to its validity by 

the standard of the fundamental principles of 

organized government to which the American 

[29] 



The 

American 
as a Po- 
litical 
Type 



people give allegiance, and which their Constitu- 
tion embodies. The test is made not by the 
President, however wise or however popular, or 
by the Congress, however cautious and however 
deliberate, but by the courts. It is made in 
accordance with well-settled and familiar prin- 
ciples of law and equity. It is this rule of law, 
of principles, not of men, which dominates all 
American political action. Every departure from 
it, every outburst against it, every violation of it, 
is not American; it is anti-American, abnormal 
and pathologic. 

By considering these facts and the operation of 
the forces named, it can, perhaps, be understood 
how it is that, despite differences of climate as 
marked as those between Denmark and Greece, 
despite separation by distance greater than that 
between England and Siberia, despite variety 
of race origin greater than that of all Europe, 
the ninety millions of American people are at 
bottom a single and recognizable political type. 
On to one vigorous original tree many new and 
strange branches have been grafted, but the parent 
stem sustains and nourishes them all. Forces 
[30] 



of every kind, political, economic, social, and edu- The 
cational, have for more than a century enriched American 
the soil in which the tree was planted and have "* ^ " 

LXtXCCLt 

helped it to its sturdy growth. 

Type 



[31] 



THE AMERICAN APART FROM HIS 
GOVERNMENT 



The world has never had a good definition of the 
word Hberty, and the American people, just now, are 
much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but 
in using the same word we do not all mean the same 
thing. We assume the word liberty may mean for 
eiich man to do as he pleases with himself, and the 
product of his labor; wliile with others the same word 
may mean for some men to do as they please with 
other men, and the product of other men's labor. 
Here are two, not only difiFerenl but incompatible 
things, called by the same name, liberty. And it fol- 
lows that each of the things is, by the respective par- 
ties, called by two different and incompatible names 
— liberty and tyranny. — Abraham Lincoln. 



THE AMERICAN APART FROM HIS 
GOVERNMENT 

The Constitution of the United States, as has The 

ah'eady been pointed out, not only erects a gov- American 

ernment and prescribes the functions of its several ^V^^'' 

parts, but it defines the sphere of the individual's _, 

Gov em- 
civil liberty and protects it. It is in this domain ^ , 

of civil liberty that by far the larger part of the 

American's life is carried on, and it is here that 

his peculiar traits and qualities are most fully 

and naturally manifested. 

The average law-abiding American has but little The American 

, 1 •.! ,1 , 1 (» p in the domain 

to CIO witli tiie government, and sees but tew ot of liberty 

its agents. Away from Washington or one of 
the larger centres of population, he sees no gov- 
ernment official save the postmaster. The na- 
tional government lays no direct tax upon him, 
and only in rare instances, and after attaining 
a certain local prominence, is he summoned to 
serve as juror in a United States court. Indeed, 
[35] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



he sees but little more of the State government 
and its officers. Occasionally the State legis- 
lature enacts a law which directly affects him or 
his business, but not often. In fact, the whole 
system of government, national, State, and local, 
is represented to the ordinary rural dweller by the 
post office, and to his fellow in the city or town 
by the policeman and the fire department. The 
American has up to this time lived a life fairly 
free from official surveillance and control. He 
has been left to his own resources, and that very 
fact has been the making of him. 

The tendency, strongly marked in every Euro- 
pean country, to extend to the individual the 
increasingly paternal cai'e and oversight of the 
government, is manifest in the United States as 
well, but it is so repugnant to American traditions, 
and so at war with the principles that have made 
America what it is, that every proposal for its 
advance is strongly resisted. So long as develop- 
ments of this kind confine themselves to safe- 
guarding the public health, to preventing manifest 
injustice and fraud, and to limiting law-given 
privilege, they can, however, readily be defended 
[36] 



and justified ; for we have passed forever beyond The 

the rule of laissez-faire. But when they attempt American 

to regulate and curtail private business, to limit ^P^" 

fvOTfh Il/ZS 

personal fortunes for purely punitive purposes, ' 
and to spy upon the private life of individuals, f 

they are so obnoxious to the American instinct 
that they will not be permitted by the people — 
until their national character is wholly changed 
— even if measures of such a kind could success- 
fully pass the scrutiny of the courts. 

The American is self-reliant by nature and by His self- 
reliance 
tradition. His forefathers braved the dangers 

of the unknown seas and the risks of a strange 
and unsettled land in order to try their fortunes 
on the other side of the world. Even to-day 
it is the Lithuanian, the Italian, or the Scandi- 
navian of imagination and energy, and not the 
opposite type, who leaves his old home, and makes 
part of the tide of emigration to America. This 
self-reliance and independence manifest them- 
selves in many ways. They make forever im- 
possible the establishment of any fixed and per- 
manent social and economic classes in America. 
Almost without exception the men who to-day 
[37] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



occupy the most conspicuous positions in the 
United States have worked their way up, by their 
own abihty, from very humble beginnings. The 
heads of the great universities were every one of 
them not long ago humble and poorly compen- 
sated teachers. The most distinguished judges 
began life as struggling barristers with their own 
way to make. Nineteen of the men who to-day 
direct the great transportation systems of the 
country, and who command very large salaries, 
were, in every case, a short generation ago, wage- 
earners of the humblest kind in the service of one 
or another of the railway companies.^ This 
unlimited opportunity to rise, and to rise young, 
acts as a perpetual stimulus to the American 
youth, and spurs him on to master some calling 
or career. It is a spur to ambition and an incen- 
tive to hard work. No observation of American 
life is correct and no prediction in regard to its 
future will be justified that proceeds upon the 
assumption that there are in America ^xed and 
stable economic classes. 



^ Harper's Weekly, New York, June 20, 1908, p. 12. 
[38] 



This explains why teachers of the sociaHstic The 

philosophy find so much difficulty in arousing a American 

feeling of class consciousness among the wage- ^P^^'' 

earners of the United States, for the wage-earners _, 

Govern- 
have no possible intention of remaining such if , 

they can help it, and they look forward with cer- 
tainty to having their children, well trained in The oppor- 
the public schools, gain positions as independent American life 
property owners or employers. They see ex- 
amples of such changes all about them, and hope 
equally to profit by the opportunities that Amer- 
ican life affords. 

Because the American has been so successful Attitude 
in acquiring a fortune, because so many men have money 
risen from the smallest possible beginnings to the 
possession of great riches, and because the country 
as a whole is so enormously wealthy, the American 
is generally supposed by Europeans and by not 
a few Americans who are but superficial observers 
of their own people, to be given over to money- 
getting, and to be enamoured of money for its own 
sake. Nothing could be farther from the fact. 
The American cares much less for money than the 
Frenchman, less even than the Englishman or the 
[39] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



German. His main ambition is successful self- 
expression, the putting forth of all his powers in 
order to gain a desired end, or to accomplish a 
difficult purpose. The money that comes with 
success of this kind the American takes gladly 
as the outward and visible sign and measure of 
what he has done. But the money itself he treats 
as a toy, or — if of finer moral calibre — as a 
trust, to be in some way administered for the public 
good, after making provision for his own family. 
This is the reason of the constant stream of bene- 
factions, great and small, in the United States. 
Universities, colleges, hospitals, asylums, libraries, 
public undertakings and memorials of every kind 
are founded and supported by private bene- 
factions of this sort. 

The ethical and political value of this state of 
affairs is very great. The sense of responsi- 
bility for the administration of great wealth, and 
the sense of obligation in regard to it, are valuable 
moral assets for any nation. The political and 
economic system which opens the way to indi- 
vidual self-expression and achievement of every 
kind, which assures to each individual the un- 
[40] 



Govern- 
ment 



disturbed possession of the fruits of his own The 
efforts, and which develops in him a sense of American 
obligation to the community for the proper use ^P^^ 
and expenditure of his gains, is far preferable to ' 
one which commits the political and economic 
injustice of adjusting the rewards to needs and to 
desires, instead of to achievements, in the hope 
that thereby equality and happiness — a false 
equality and an illusory happiness — will be 
promoted. 

Contrary, perhaps, to common belief, the The Ameri- 
American has a highly emotional temperament, tionaitem- 
His so-called practicality is in part tempered and P^rament 
in part controlled by warmth of feeling and a 
persistent idealism that are very remarkable. 
It was not practicality but idealism that settled 
the Atlantic seaboard. It was not practicality 
but idealism that pushed out across the Alleghany 
Mountains, bridging rivers, felling forests, plough- 
ing prairies, building homes, and opening a new 
world to settlement and to civilization. The 
American will sacrifice any amount of money, 
undergo any privation or suffering, put forth any 
effort, for his beliefs. The Civil War proved that 
[41] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



beyond peradventure. It is commonplace, too, 
that he responds quickly and sympathetically 
to a noble idea or a lofty sentiment. In the lit- 
erature of his own language, he is touched and 
moved by the best, both in poetry and in prose. 

The American people show their best and finest 
qualities in time of great national grief and sor- 
row. During the long dreary Aveeks when Presi- 
dent Garfield lay dying, and again when President 
McKinley Mas shot, the emotional temper of the 
people was so splendid as to be awe-inspiring. 
On the other hand, the unreasoning outburst of 
blind rage and hate which followed the blow- 
ing up of the battleship Maine, in the harbor of 
Havana, just before the outbreak of the Spanish- 
American War, was something to be heartily 
ashamed of. 

Because of this strongly emotional temper 
great waves of political interest and feeling sweep 
over the body politic in a way that astounds and 
disconcerts the observer who is used to more 
intellectual processes. Examples of these waves 
are the so-called granger and greenback move- 
ments of the 70's, the Free-silver movement of 
[42] 



the 80's and 90's, as well as the movements of The 

to-day against the trusts, and in favor of the American 

prohibition of the liquor traffic. The process in ^V^^ 

,11 • 11 11 JTom his 

all these matters is one and the same. A real ' 



Govern- 



grievance or abuse, more or less severe, exists, , 

and for it some person or party proposes a prompt 
and plausible remedy. In their anxiety to bring 
the grievance or abuse to an end, large numbers 
of people grasp eagerly at the proffered remedy 
and become ardent in its support. The current 
of feeling runs on like a torrent, but gradually 
the intellect asserts itself, and after careful dis- 
cussion and examination, the proposed remedy 
for the grievance or abuse is accepted in a modi- 
fied form, or rejected entirely. In all these 
experiences the dangerous moment comes when 
ambitious demagogues, apt at inflammatory 
speech, try to use the people's aroused feelings 
as a means to gain position and power for them- 
selves. This exploitation of the people is a danger 
inherent in all democracies. There is no safe- 
guard against it but the native good sense and the 
firm hold on political principle of the people 
themselves. 

£43] 



The He would be but a poor observer of the Amer- 

American jcan people who failed to take note of the strong 
apart hold which religious belief has upon them. 

fVOTYh ll/XS 

' Christianity in some one of its many forms is a 

Govern- 

. part of their nature. Undoubtedly the religious 

observance of Sunday and church-going are not 

The Americans so universal as they once were, particularly in 

a Christian , . pi 

people the more populous communities ; yet tor the most 

part not to have some church connection is held 

to be as lacking in respectability as not to have 

a regular occupation. There are in the United 

States one hundred and sixty thousand ministers 

of religion, more than two hundred thousand 

church buildings, and over thirty-two million 

communicants. In small villages and in rural 

districts, and to some extent elsewhere, the church 

is the social as well as the religious centre. The 

clergy in the rural districts almost uniformly 

exercise a strong influence over their parishioners 

in all matters. Religious groupings in the South, 

and often in the West also, are the basis of social 

classification. Certainly religious forms per^st 

even if beliefs are weakened or altered. All 

important political conventions are opened with 

[44] 



prayer. The daily sessions of the Senate and The 

House of Representatives and of many State American 

legislatures are opened with prayer. Chaplains ^P^''* 

are provided by law for the army and navy. ' 

Govern- 
This religious influence and this regard for the , 

Christian religion go back to the very beginning 
of American history. They may be found in the 
commission given by Ferdinand and Isabella of 
Spain to Columbus, in that issued by Queen 
Elizabeth of England to Sir Walter Raleigh, in 
the first charter of Virginia, in the Compact by 
the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, in the Funda- 
mental Orders of Connecticut, in the Charter of 
Privileges granted by William Penn to the Prov- 
ince of Pennsylvania, in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and in the constitutions of the several 
States. The United States Supreme Court, 
speaking by Mr. Justice Brewer, has declared 
the religious character of the American people in 
no uncertain terms. The Court said ^ : — 

" If we pass beyond these matters to a view of 
American life as expressed by its laws, its business, 
its customs, and its society, we find everywhere 

^ Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. (1891). 
[45] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



a clear recognition of the same truth. Among 
other matters note the following: The form of 
oath universally prevailing, concluding with an 
appeal to the Almighty; the custom of opening 
sessions of all deliberative bodies with prayer; 
the prefatory words of all wills, 'In the name of 
God, Amen'; the laws respecting the observance 
of the Sabbath, with a general cessation of all 
secular business, and the closing of courts, legis- 
latures, and other similar public assemblies on 
that day; the churches and church organizations 
which abound in every city, town, and hamlet ; 
the multitude of charitable organizations existing 
everywhere under Christian auspices ; the gigan- 
tic missionary associations, with general sup- 
port, and aiming to establish Christian missions 
in every quarter of the globe. These and many 
other matters which might be noticed add a vol- 
ume of unofficial declarations to the mass of or- 
ganic utterances that this is a Christian nation." 
There is of course no established church in the 
United States, and no legal or official preference 
of one form of religious belief to another. The 
fact remains nevertheless, as the Supreme Court 
[46] 



has said, that the United States is a Christian The 
nation. After taking into consideration the ab- American 
solute rehgious tolerance that prevails, it is still ^P^" 

JYOTtt this 

true that the religion of the Jew, the Mahometan, ' 

Govern- 
or the Confucian does not have and cannot have . 

the same place and injfluence in American life as 
the re\igion of the Christian. The United States 
is both in law and in fact a Christian nation, and 
it would be so even if a majority of its inhabitants 
were not — as they are — adherents of some 
form of the Christian faith. It is so, despite the 
fact that a very large number of its inhabitants 
profess no form of the Christian faith whatsoever. 
To say that the United States is in law and in 
fact a Christian nation means that the whole 
point of view of the people, as well as their in- 
stitutions and traditions, are those which have 
been developed under the dominance of the Chris- 
tian faith, first in Western Europe and then in 
America, and because of that dominance. The 
legal calendar is the Christian calendar, and it is 
inconceivable that there should be any other. 

On the other hand, the United States is a country Religious 
in which there is complete separation between 
[47] 



The 

American 
apa rt 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



church and state, and which is happily catholic 
in spirit, and hospitable to citizens of every race 
and every creed. Therefore, care is always 
taken to observe the constitutional guarantee that 
the free exercise of religion shall not be prohibited, 
and the adherents of any given creed, however 
divergent from Christianity, are allowed to live 
in accordance with their traditions and con- 
victions, provided only that in so doing they do 
not come in conflict with the laws of the land. 
It is because of this policy that Mormons are 
permitted to live in the United States, while their 
practice of polygamy is now prohibited. 

That this attitude of the people of the United 
States is not inimical to the interests of religious 
bodies is proved both by the fact that these bod- 
ies are wholly satisfied with it, and that they thrive 
under it. The many vexatious problems that un- 
der modern conditions confront an established 
church are wholly avoided, and the churches each 
and all grow and flourish. Perhaps nowhere in 
the world is the Roman Catholic church so fortu- 
nately situated as in the United States; that it is 
able to stand without state support, its more than 
[48] 



ten million communicants in the United States The 
amply prove. American 

The standards of business honor, as well as "?"" 

1 PI- m • 1 • 1 • .1 from hiii 

those ot busmess etnciency, are very high m tlie ' 

Govcrn- 
United States. The credit system is widely , 

extended, and it rarely results in serious loss. 
The people have invested their savings very largely High stand- 
in the stocks and bonds of railways and industrial j^^^g ^^^^^ 
corporations, in most cases to their profit and 
great advantage. The financial, operating, and 
manufacturing managers of these corporations 
are almost without exception men of unusual 
ability, great technical knowledge and skill, 
and scrupulous honesty. Such huge under- 
takings as the United Sjtates Steel Corporation, 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the 
Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company 
are models of good management and fair dealing. 
Their size and the character of their business 
makes them really public, not private, organiza- 
tions. Yet, of course, they are in no sense gov- 
ernmental. 

In a period of rapidly expanding business activ- 
ity and great accumulation of wealth, such as have 
[49] 



apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



The marked the history of the United States since 

American the Civil War, some adventurers, speculators, 
and exploiters have found themselves in promi- 
nent places of trust and responsibility. Some 
such — not many, in reality a very few — have 
misused their opportunities and betra3'8d their 
trust. This fact has been carried all over the 
world, and the wholly unjustifiable inference has 
been drawn that in America business honor and 
business honesty are at a low ebb. The contrary 
is the case. New York, which now rivals London 
in financial importance, administers hundreds 
of millions of trust funds and deposits with scru- 
pulous honesty and fairness. The heads and 
directors of the leading banks, trust companies, 
and commercial houses of New York are among 
the best known and most honored of / merican 
citizens. They hold fast with jealous care to the 
high traditions of honor and conservatism which 
have lasted for more than a century. 

Similar conditions exist in other parts of the 

country. The local banker in a village or small 

town in the interior is almost certainly a man 

of high repute and public spirit. He is proud of 

[50] 



his community and solicitous for its welfare and The 
growth. The same is true of the mercantile American 
classes. Of the whole vast business of the United ^P*^" 

iTOTYt h/t 9 

States it is estimated that only five per cent, one- ' 

Govern- 
twentieth part, is settled for with cash payments. , 

The remaining nineteen-twentieths is settled for 
by banic checks or other instruments of credit. 
This would not be possible in a country whose 
banking and commercial class were tricky and 
dishonest. 

Despite his material success, the American has The American 
still much to learn about the conduct of business, 
particularly with foreign nations. He is apt to 
confuse attention to business with physical pres- 
ence at his office or factory. He has yet to learn 
that twelve months' work may be done in ten 
months or even in eleven, but that it cannot pos- 
sibly be done in twelve. Relaxation, outdoor 
life, physical exercise, and change of scene refresh 
and invigorate both mind and body, and thereby 
contribute to business efiiciency. This lesson is 
being learned by Americans, but slowly. Nor 
have American business men mastered to any 
large extent the secret of carrying on a successful 
[51] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



The large 
corporations 



foreign trade. To make what the buyer wants, 
not what the manufacturer prefers or thinks the 
buyer ought to have, must become the controlling 
principle. Buyers in other countries have their 
own strong preferences as to style, marks, and 
forms of packing. The American trader often 
neglects these details, and fails thereby to compete 
successfully with his English or his German trade 
rival. But he is learning rapidly, as the mount- 
ing value of the manufactured goods exported 
from the United States plainly indicates. 

The organization of the large corporations, 
popularly but quite improperly known as trusts, 
has given a strong impetus to business efficiency 
in America. They have greatly reduced waste 
in production, and they have increased productive- 
ness while generally reducing the price of the 
commodities in which they deal. They have 
opened new and much more lucrative avenues of 
employment to men of capacity and zeal. They 
have excited the animosity of the small because 
they are big, and they have incurred widespread 
public hostility because their managers have 
sometimes interfered in matters of legislation, or 
[52] 



have tried to secure special and unfair advantages The 

from the common carriers. These abuses, how- American 

ever, are now correcting themselves, or are being "P^' 

corrected, and public sentiment in regard to the v, 

Govern- 
large corporations may reasonably be expected , 

to change. The large corporations are both a 
legitimate and a necessary outgrowth of modern 
economic conditions as these exist in the United 
States, and the balance of advantage and dis- 
advantage is largely in their favor, provided only 
that they be restrained from using their great 
strength inequitably or from damaging some other 
and more important public interest. A corpora- 
tion is cooperative, and cooperation is the best 
use an individual can make of his individuality. 

Some years ago a distinguished Englishman The West 
visited the United States, and spent the first three ^^^j^g ^^ ^he 
weeks of his stay in Boston and then three weeks United states 
in New York. Shortly before sailing for home 
he expressed his intention of writing a book about 
the country whose hospitality he had so much 
enjoyed, and was greatly surprised when an 
American friend remarked : " You cannot pos- 
sibly write a book about the United States; you 
[53] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



have not been to the United States at all; you 
have only visited New York and Boston." 
Though spoken in jest, these words convey a 
truth that is almost always overlooked. While 
New York and Boston are, of course, genuinely 
American, yet they are so near to Europe, and 
their relations with Europe are so many and so 
close, that a visit to them does not suffice to give 
to the visitor either an accurate or a complete 
impression of American life and of the American 
habit of mind. The American type is seen at its 
purest and best in any one of the hundred or more 
small cities and towns in the Middle West. If 
one were to select a restricted area in which to 
study American life and American characteris- 
tics, he would do best to choose northern Illinois 
and the adjacent parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, and 
Minnesota. Here the soil is rich, the settlements 
are old enough to have an aspect of comfort and 
order, the population is well-to-do, there is little 
or no extreme poverty, the public schools are of 
the best, churches abound and are strong in 
influence, and the average of intelligence and of 
intellectual interest is very high. Here Europe 
[543 



is perfectly familiar, but not quite so adjacent as The 

in New York or Boston. The population read American 

the best books, and take in the best magazines, ^V^^ 

reviews, and weekly journals. The boys and \^ 

Govern- 
girls are sent to college almost as a matter of , 

course, usually in the tax-supported State uni- 
versities. There is little vice and less crime, 
and both the manners and morals of the people 
are excellent. In Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, 
Nebraska, Colorado, California, and elsewhere, 
similar conditions abound, but the particular 
part of the country that has been named may 
justly be taken as truly American in a repre- 
sentative sense. 

The traveller through the United States who is The Americau 
so fortunate as to meet with really representative of the world 
men in their homes and clubs, who is not restricted 
merely to seeing the country and the people in 
hotels and through the windows of a railway car, 
cannot fail to be impressed by their general mental 
alertness, by their wide and accurate information 
as to men and things in other countries, by their 
knowledge of literature and scientific progress, 
and by their fairness and openness of mind. The 
[55] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



old-time American habit of decrying all languages, 
all countries, and all culture not its own, is wear- 
ing away. That habit marked a provincial self- 
assertive state of mind which not unnaturally 
succeeded one of colonial subordination and 
dependence. This growth from colonial subordi- 
nation to a provincial self-assertiveness was as- 
sisted by what Lowell calls a certain habit of 
condescension in foreigners. 

While the spread of intelligence results in quite 
too hasty judgment of men and events, yet that 
same spread of intelligence provides the means 
for correcting such hasty judgments. Travel 
broadens the American's view of life and helps 
him to the material for a comparative study of 
his social and political problems. Of late the 
references in the Congressional debates to the 
experience of other nations in matters of finance 
and corporate control and in regard to the rela- 
tions between capital and labor, have increased 
greatly both in number and in understanding. 
The American of to-day feels himself decidedly 
a citizen of the world, and not, as w^as once the 
case, a citizen of a world apart. He is now sen- 
[56] 



sitive to foreign criticism and appreciative of The 
foreign approval and commendation. This is American 
a rather recent development, and one which ^V^^^ 

marks a distinct step forward in civilization. To ' 

Govern- 

stand in isolation is to cut one's self off from the 

ment 

privilege of serving or of being served. 

The dangers which America may yet encounter Possible 
will not be those which the older peoples fear, ^^f^jcan^* 
Economic pressure from without could have no civilization 
serious effects; the nation's consuming power 
is too great and its natural resources too varied 
and too extensive. An offensive war against the 
United States is almost unthinkable : first, because 
it would certainly be futile, and, secondly, because 
we are rapidly reaching a plane of civilization 
where self-respecting nations will not go to war 
with each other. 

The dangers which confront America are quite 
different, and will come, if at all, from within. 
The original and persistent Anglo-Saxon impulse, 
now nearly two thousand years old, may conceiv- 
ably lose its force. Its capacity to subdue and 
to assimilate the alien elements brought to it 
by immigration may possibly be exhausted. A 
[57] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



The warning 
of Washing- 
ton 



generation forgetful of the fundamental prin- 
ciples upon which the nation was built, may in 
a fit of passion or of temper follow a popular but 
shallow leader over a political precipice. The 
reverence and regard for law which alone make 
a civilized state and free institutions possible may 
yield to passionate violence and to lawless ven- 
geance, in forgetfulness of Lincoln's fine maxim, 
"There is no grievance that is a fit object of 
redress by mob laAv." No one of these <^angers 
is imminent, but it would be simple blindness 
not to realize that they are possible. 

One of the wisest and most illuminating docu- 
ments of American history is the farewell address 
which Washington addressed to his countrymen 
in 1796, when about to retire from the Presidency. 
It is the fortunate custom in the United States 
Senate to cause the farewell address to be read 
aloud by a senator on each recurring anniversary 
of Washington's birthday. That address, which 
mingles the wisdom of Washington with the pro- 
found insight of Hamilton, points out to Ameri- 
cans where their path of safety as a nation lies. 
With especial emphasis, W^ashington counsels 
[58] 



the spirit of obedience to law because it is the law. The 

and not merely if and because a law meets the Avierican 

approval of the individual upon whom the duty ^P^" 

of obedience rests. He points to a spirit of law- 

■ . . Govern- 

lessness as a means of substituting the will of a 

° ment 

party or faction for the delegated will of the 
nation ; and that party or faction often only a 
small but artful and enterprising minority of the 
community. This is an ever-present danger in 
the United States. Small groups exert themselves 
vigorously to obtain certain acts of legislation, 
acts sometimes desirable in the public interest, 
but more often in aid or protection of a selfish or 
a special interest. Perhaps they succeed in their 
eflFort, and so impose upon the community a policy 
which it does not want or approve, but which a 
majority of its representatives had not the wit or 
the skill to defeat. This law and a hundred like 
it fall into disuse or are openly violated, and so 
operate to spread abroad a disregard or contempt 
for the law as such. The large number of legis- 
lative bodies in the United States, the passion of 
many of the people for legislating in regard to all 
sorts and kinds of things that legislation had better 
[59] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



The law-abid- 
ing spirit 



leave alone, and the ease with which much legis- 
lation of a certain kind is accomplished, are all 
causes cooperating to weaken respect for law 
and the law-abiding spirit. 

It is proper to say that outbursts of lawlessness 
and disorder, while still numerous and shocking, 
are increasingly infrequent. Anything like the 
Draft Riots of 1863 in the city of New York would 
now be impossible. President Cleveland's vig- 
orous and patriotic handling of the outbreak at 
Chicago in 1894, over the heads of the local and 
State officials who were in sympathy with the 
disorderly classes, was a memorable act and one 
which makes any repetition of that offence most 
unlikely. Lynching still continues alike in the 
South — where the problem is complicated by 
strong race antagonism — and in some parts of 
the North ; but public sentiment and public offi- 
cials are much more vigorous in preventing and 
in punishing such crimes than they once were. 

To obey the law because it is the law and to 

labor for its alteration or repeal in an orderly 

way if any given law is repugnant to one's sense 

of justice, is the first and chief lesson for the 

[60] 



Govern- 
ment 



American parent and the American school to The 
teach the children of to-day who are to be the American 
responsible American citizens of to-morrow. No ^P^^^ 
one ever stated the dangers of a spread of the ' 
spirit of lawlessness better than Lincoln himself. 
" I know the American people are much attached 
to their government," he said. "I know they 
would suffer much for its sake; I know they 
would endure evils long and patiently before 
they would ever think of exchanging it for an- 
other, — yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws 
be continually despised and disregarded, if their 
rights to be secure in their persons and property 
are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a 
mob, the alienation of their affections from the 
government is the natural consequence; and to 
that, sooner or later, it must come." ^ 

The only alternative to a spirit of obedience to 
law for its own sake, is the man on horseback. 

But the American finds protection against the 
dangers which might easily threaten his civili- 
zation, in his natural cheerfulness, his unabated 

^ Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Nico- 
lay and Hay (1902), I : 11-12. 
[61] 



The 

American 
apart 
from his 
Govern- 
ment 



The mob and 
the people 



self-confidence, and his natural optimism. He 
cannot be persuaded that come what may, things 
will not turn out well, and if necessary, he will 
put his sturdy shoulder to the wheel, and see that 
they do turn out well. He rises to a crisis of any 
kind, whether in his personal or family fortunes, 
or in public affairs, with surprising good humor, 
readiness, and skill. He rarely remains defeated 
long. So far as his political institutions are con- 
cerned, his confidence in them is such that in his 
heart, no matter what dolorous language he may 
use in the exigencies of a political contest, he does 
not believe that even his most distrusted political 
opponent can really injure or overturn them. 

In a democracy, the line between the mob and 
the people is a narrow one. The same individuals 
compose both the mob and the people. When 
reason is unhinged by passion, and when appetite 
rules the will, then the people are the mob. 
When intelligent reflection asserts itself and when 
action is based on principle, then the mob becomes 
the people. Just because this line between the 
mob and the people is so narrow, the responsi- 
bility attached to leadership in the American 
[62] 



democracy is correspondingly heavy. Violent The 

and inconsidered speech, appeals addressed to American 

the appetites of men and to their baser natures, ^V^^- 

• 1 1 1 1-1 <• from his 

exhortations that lead to envy and lealousy ot ' 

. . . Govern- 
those who have gained just distinction or earned . 

honest wealth, are all appeals not to the people, 
but to the mob. He who really, not merely 
verbally and vocally, puts his trust in the people, 
trusts their higher instincts and makes liis appeal 
to them. Such a leader clearly and patiently 
expounds principles and illustrates them. He 
urges policies on grounds of justice, mercy, na- 
tional benefit; he never tries to develop a class 
consciousness as opposed to a consciousness of 
common citizenship, much less attempts to array 
class against class. He hears all sides, and acts 
as his conscience and his reason alone dictate. 
The greatest triumph of the American people \l 
to have produced such a leader, to have followed 
him through the Valley of the Shadow of national 
death, and to revere increasingly his memory. 
He was Abraham Lincoln. 



[63] 



THE AMERICAN AND THE 
INTELLECTUAL LIFE 



Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, 
that a man has a ranwe of affinities through which he 
can modulate the violence of any master-tones that 
have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor 
him against himself. Culture redresses the balance, 
puts him among his equals and superiors, revives the 
delicious sense of sympathy and warns him of the 
dangers of solitude and repulsion. — Ralph Waldo 
Emerson. 



THE AMERICAN AND THE 
INTELLECTUAL LIFE 

On July 4, 1778, in the first oration known to The 
have been delivered in the United States in com- American 

memoration of the nation's independence and ^ 

., . r •. 1 1 i- T\ • 1 Intellectual 

on the anniversary ot its declaration, David 

Life 
Ramsay, a distinguished South Carolina publicist 

and man of letters, predicted that literature would 
flourish in America and that American indepen- 
dence would mark an illustrious epoch, remark- 
able for the spreading an.d improvement of science. 
Already, he pointed out, a zeal for promoting 
learning, hitherto unknown, had begun to over- 
spread the United States. What has been the 
result ? How far have these prophecies beer 
justified ? 

By common consent the United States has The basis of 

taken a place among; the most enliohtened and "l" "^^ ^° 
r G o Amenca 

cultivated nations of the earth. This follows, 

however, by no means from the wide distribution 

[67] 



Intellectual 
Life 



The of wealth and material comfort; for those con- 

Amencan ditions are entirely compatible with a sluggish and 
ana the inert civilization of the higher sort. Nor does it 

follow altogether from the free and liberal char- 
acter of the country's political and economic 
institutions ; for they may be abused as well as 
used. It results, rather, from an intense devotion 
to high intellectual and moral ideals, and to a 
never-failing faith in the power of education to 
promote both individual and national happiness, 
efficiency, and virtue. The American people are 
almost Socratic in their acceptance of the prin- 
ciple that knowledge will lead to right and useful 
action and conduct. History has done much to 
dispel the illusion that Socrates cherished, for 
knowledge and virtue are certainly not inter- 
changeable terms. The American people, never- 
theless, have an almost fanatical belief in educa- 
tion because of the practical results which they 
feel certain will flow from it. In large measure 
these expected practical results do flow from 
education, and if the formula be not pressed too 
far, the American conviction as to education is 
quite defensible. 

[68] 



Behind all this lies the fundamental and original The 
Puritanism which gives so much of its form to Arnencan 
American life. It is a Puritanism, transformed, ^^^ ^ 

LTttclLcCl'tiCll 

overlaid, and warmed into a more generous glow, 
but still it is Puritanism. Puritanism built New 
England, and for nearly a hundred years New The under- 
England powerfully influenced the United States. .J^°^ 
If New England now seems isolated and pro- 
vincial, and if its identity is almost lost through 
the admixture of large Irish and French-Canadian 
elements in the population, yet the fact must 
never be overlooked that New England Puri- 
tanism, built on the rock of Geneva, is the secure 
theological and philosophical foundation on which 
all that is distinctive in American life and culture 
has been built. No philosophy of life has been 
so influential in America as that of John Calvin. 
This fact explains much of the narrowness and 
lack of sympathy with strange customs and views 
which one observes among Americans, and it 
explains also much of the determination and 
energy of the American temperament. Devo- 
tion to duty for its own sake and a determination 
to persevere to the end in any undertaking simply 
[69] 



and the 

Intellectual 

Life 



The because it has been undertaken, are almost uni- 

American versal American applications of Calvinism. The 
ideal has always influenced the American more 
than the material, but he manifests grim and ill- 
concealed satisfaction when the pursuit of his 
ideal brings with it a material reward. 
The great While American conditions have been extremely 

Americans 

favorable to individual initiative and accomplish- 
ment, and while the average of accomplishment, 
taking the whole population into account, is high, 
yet achievements of the very first class, judged 
by world standards, have not been numerous in 
America. If the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies were searched for great spirits and great 
intelligences of the highest rank, America could 
furnish perhaps ten. — not altogether a bad show- 
ing for a people so new, with economic and politi- 
cal tasks of such magnitude pressing for accom- 
plishment, which tasks, almost of necessity, drew 
the highest talent to themselves, and away from 
science, art, and lette"^. These ten would, in 
my judgment, be Jonathan Edwards, philosopher 
and theologian; Benjamin Franklin, man of the 
world ; George Washington, father of his country ; 
[70] 



Alexander Hamilton, statesman and political phi- The 
losopher ; Thomas Jefferson, leader of the people ; American 

John Marshall, jurist ; Daniel Webster, orator "^^ ^^^ 

, , ,. . . All T • 1 1 T 11 Intellectual 

and publicist; Abraham Ldncoln, whom Liowell ^., 

Life 
significantly called " the first American " ; Ralph 

Waldo Emerson, teacher of religion and morals ; 
and Willard Gibbs, mathematician and physicist. 
Perhaps two other names should be added: 
Francis Parkman, historian, and William Dwight 
Whitney, philologist. Of these ten, Washington, 
Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Webster, and 
Lincoln were the products of the nation's im- 
mediate needs, and take rank with the world's ' 
publicists and statesmen ; while Edwards, Frank- 
lin, Emerson, and Gibbs — as well as Parkman 
and Whitney — were all of the reflective type of 
mind, and are to be classed with the world's men 
of letters, philosophers, and men of science. 

The reflective product of America, outside of Art and 
the field of political science, is thus far, not un- 
naturally, small. In the fine arts, too, with the 
noteworthy exception of architecture, the Ameri- 
can contributions must be admitted to be either 
frankly imitative or clearly to fall short of the 
[71J 



and the 

Intellectual 

Life 



The highest excellence. The sculpture of Saint Gau- 

American dens and the stained glass of La Farge, both of 
which are of marked distinction, stand out as 
noteworthy exceptions. With architecture, how- 
ever, the case is different, Richardson, Hunt, and 
McKim have led the way to an important art 
movement in architecture, and the past generation 
has witnessed a remarkable outburst of originality 
and inventiveness, particularly in the interweav- 
ing of design with problems of engineering and 
construction, which is evidence of real power and 
of the possession of a genuinely artistic imagina- 
tion. 

Art feeds on things artistic. Much may there- 
fore be expected from the significant collections 
of paintings, sculpture, and other art objects that 
are now being rapidly brought together in the 
great museums of New York, Boston, and Chi- 
cago, and to a lesser degree elsewhere, as well as 
from the important collections of private individ- 
uals in all parts of the country. 
Scientific Scientific inquiry and the application of scien- 

tific discovery to industry and art are eagerly 
pursued in America and with marked success. 
[72] 



activity 



Intellectual 
Life 



The universities have been most hospitable to The 
the new scientific movement, and the government American 
"has fostered it generously and in many ways. ^ ^ 
For almost every department of scientific activity 
the United States can to-day furnish representa- 
tives whose work is everywhere recognized as 
contributing to scientific advance and whose 
distinction is equal to that of their fellow-workers 
in other countries. 

De Tocqueville expressed the opinion that the Philosophy 

p , ... . , and the 

very structure oi a democratic society is unsuited theoretical 

to meditation and inimical to it. This is certainly s"^°<^^^ 
true if one's observation or attention be confined 
to a democratic society in the making; for then 
the pressure and struggle for power and for gain, 
the unending tumult which accompanies the task 
of economic and political organization, and the 
practical interpretation of underlying formulas 
and principles, as well as the novelty of the con- 
ditions of life, all unite to compel the attention 
outward, and to make reflection an impossible 
luxury. Only a Hegel could pursue the course 
of his abstruse meditations uninterrupted, with 
the guns of Jena sounding in his ears. But after 
[73] 



Intellectual 
Life 



The a democratic state of society has established itself, 

American and traditions have become fixed, there seems no 
ana trie reason to believe that reflection and meditation 
will not then take and hold the commanding place 
which they have always held among civilized men. 
Certainly the history of the American universities 
justifies this expectation. Philosophy is now, 
and for some time past has been, one of the 
favorite studies at the American universities and 
colleges, and the reputation and productive ac- 
tivity of the teachers of philosophy at Columbia, 
Harvard, and California Universities, in particu- 
lar, has drawn general attention to them as cen- 
tres of reflective studies. Ijikewise the study of 
the theoretical aspects of economics, law, mathe- 
matics, physics, biology, and other departments 
of science is pursued by large numbers of students 
in America, and in time these studies must bear 
fruit. Epoch-making discoveries in science or 
contributions to philosophy of high importance 
are not made with great frequency, however. 
All Greece only produced one Plato and one 
Aristotle, and it was a far cry even from Descartes 
and Newton to Laplace. 

[74] 



The influence and importance of meditation The 
and of reflective studies will increase in the United American 
States as the people generally learn to distinguish ^^ ^ 

J.7Zf dlcctUQ/t 

between public noise and public service, between ^_ 

Life 
passing popularity and permanent worth. It 

takes some time for the masses in a democracy Place of re- 

1 • 1 mi • PI- flection in 

to learn this lesson. Ihey are conscious oi their American life 

power, they are not trained to reflection, they feel 
the pressure of immediate necessities, and they 
are quick to follow the leader who, having won 
their sympathy by his personality or by his acts, 
promises them the most. Popularity is, there- 
fore, the path to immediate power, but it is a 
path strewn with dangers both to the leader and 
to the led. The believer in democracy cannot ac- 
cept temporary popularity as a test of greatness 
in a leader; he must look rather to those basic 
principles on which the nation's institutions rest, 
and to their orderly and equitable development 
and application. Writing of Alexander Hamilton, 
his most recent biographer, with sure insight, has 
said : " A man who never disagrees with his coun- 
trymen, and who shrinks from unpopularity as 
the worst of all evils, can never have a share in ' 

[75] 



The 

American 
and the 
Intellectual 
Life 



Popularity 
versus worth 



Educational 
activity 



moulding the traditions of a virile race, though 
for a time he may make its fashions." ^ In like 
spirit a contemporary statesman, speaking from 
the vantage ground of a unique public service in 
a most difficult post, has written : " Occasions do 
occur, which in these democratic days are becom- 
ing more, rather than less frequent, when the best 
service a government official can render to his 
country is to place himself in opposition to the 
public view. Indeed, if he feels certain that he 
is right, it is his bounden duty to do so, especially 
in respect to questions as to which public opinion 
is ill informed." ^ A majority carries no moral 
weight because it is a majority, although it may, 
if it chooses, enforce its views and preferences 
by brute force. A majority carries moral weight 
only when it is right. A democracy learns this 
invaluable lesson only when it has first learned 
to give weight to the reflective habit of mind. 
The vast and unremitting educational activity 
in the United States, the constant and generous 
support of literary and scientific undertakings 

^ Oliver, Alexander Hamilton, p. 436. 
^ Earl of Cromer, Modern Egypt, 1 : 438. 
[76] 



of every kind, and the increasing deference paid The 

to the opinions of those who speak with the au- American 

thority of knowledge, are all evidences that at ^^ ^^ 

bottom the American people do believe that re- 

Life 
flection is a better guide for life than appetite. 

The demagogue is constantly telling those who 
will listen to him that the voice of the people is 
the voice of God, and that it is better to trust the 
instincts and common-sense of the masses to 
solve political and economic problems than to 
follow the guidance of the expert or to study the 
experience of other nations. Nevertheless, he 
sends his own children to school to learn the rudi- 
ments of the world's knowledge, and those who 
applaud his false teaching do the same. The 
demagogue is a by-product of democracy, not its 
fruit. 

Perhaps there is no surer indication of the Higher educa- 
progress of a modern people toward conscious 
dependence upon reflection instead of impulse, 
than the character and influence of a nation's 
universities. If the universities stand vis-a-vis 
to the nation ; if they serve it and represent it in 
all possible ways; if their scholars are mature, 
177] 



Intellectual 

Life 



The well-trained, and devoted to the advancement of 

American knowledge; if their students are drawn freely 
ana trie ^^^jj widely from all classes in the community; 
and if the professions of law, medicine, d.vinity, 
teachin<^, and engineering are largely recruited 
from men trained in the universities, — then the 
nation is assuredly on the upward j)ath, away 
from government and life by impulse and appetite, 
toward government and life by reflection and 
experience. That this is true of the United States 
Ctannot be doubted. 

The history of llie American universities is 
unique iiiul significant. They are, perhaps, a 
dozen or fifteen in number, and tliey are, without 
exception, young and new. They are a develop- 
ment, under the guidance and stimulus of German 
example, out of the American college, which, in 
turn, was the New World's adaptation and devel- 
opment of the English Oxford and Cambridge, 
as those were in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. In Europe the usual divisions of the 
formal educational process are the elementary, 
the secondary, and the higher, or university stage. 
In America the corresponding divisions consist 
[78] 



of four stages, instead of three. These four are The 

the elementary school, the secondary school, the American 

college, and the university. In America the ele- ^'^ 

, , , 1 , , Intdledual 

mentary school and the secondary school meet 

each other end to end, instead of overlapping as 

is usually the case in European countries. The 

American college in turn takes about two years 

of the work of the .secondary school (Gymnasium, 

Real-Schule) as that institution is organized in 

Germany, for instance. As a result, the American 

secondary school has normally a four-year course 

and the college has normally one of equal length. 

The college has been, is, and — it is greatly The American 

college 

to be hoped — will continue to be, the central 
point and the foundation of higher education in 
America. The American college is the efficient 
representative of the tradition of liberal learning 
which took its rise early in the middle ages in the 
Faculty of Arts in the University of Paris, and 
which, handed on through Oxford and Cambridge, 
reached America in colonial days. Of nominal 
colleges there are in the United States several 
hundred, but the number of effective institutions 
which truly deserve and worthily bear the name 
[79] 



Intellectual 
Life 



The is perhaps a hundred or a hundred and twenty. 

American Scattered widely over the country, found in every 
and the State, these colleges reach with their instruction 

and their influence thousands of American youths 
each year, and send them into the world to take 
up their life-work with a new and more elevated 
outlook, and with minds and characters marked 
with the personal influence of devoted and schol- 
arly teachers. In the college course the subjects 
usually taught are Greek and Latin, English, 
French, and German; history, economics, and 
philosophy ; mathematics, physics, chemistry, and 
biology. The college confers upon its graduates 
the degree of bachelor, and the young alumnus 
goes, at twenty-one to twenty-three years of age, 
either into the practical work of life, or to a uni- 
versity to pursue more advanced or professional 
studies. 

The popularity of the college in America, the 
extreme sacrifices made by many parents to give 
their children the advantage of a college education, 
the fact that the college students come literally 
from every class in the community, the influence 
of college traditions and ideals and of college 
[SO] 



association in after life, all testify to the strong The 
hold which scholarship and the life of reflection American 

have upon the imagination of the American people. * 

iTifcllccii-Kd 
As the number of men and women who have en- 

Life 
joyed the privilege of college residence and college 

study increases, it will furnish the nation with a 
rapidly growing and influential body of citizen- 
ship, which will have a respect for the results of 
reflection and a confidence in them. These men 
and women will be a steadying influence of almost 
incalculable value, as the nation confronts its 
numerous and difficult problems of internal 
development and welfare. With his caustic wit, 
Lord Palmerston once said that if a little learn- 
ing is a dangerous thing, no learning at all is 
more dangerous still. To open the way to a cer- 
tain amount of liberal learning for large numbers 
of American youths is the self-imposed and, on 
the whole, the successfully executed task of the 
American college. 

While the American college goes back for its The American 

1 ^ 1 ,p p , 1 universities 

origm to the farst halt ot the seventeenth century, 

the American university has come into existence 

during the past forty years. Here again, as in the 

[81] 



The • case of the college, the thing must be distinguished 

American from the name. Since in the United States an 

ana me educational institution may be either established 

Intellectual , • . • i i ^i . i? ^ j.i_ 

and mamtamed by the government oi one oi tne 



Lif 



States or cities, or exist, with a general or a spe- 
cial charter, without direct government support or 
control, many institutions have taken the name 
University without any proper warrant what- 
ever. Therefore, the number of nominal Ameri- 
can universities is very large. The real univer- 
sities, however, are easily recognized in Europe 
and America alike, and it is those only that are 
properly spoken of as the American universities. 
The American universities are organized largely 
upon the German model. They have, however, 
adapted that model to the requirements of Ameri- 
can life and to American administrative habits. 
With but insignificant exceptions, these univer- 
sities have grown up out of colleges, and they 
retain colleges as part of their organization and 
work. The name University is consequently 
used in America in a twofold sense. It is used 
to designate either the whole educational activity 
of an institution properly called a university, 
[82] 



or it is used to designate the advanced, research, The 
and professional work of such an institution, as Am,erican 

distinguished from the collegiate or undergraduate ^'^ ^^ 

, . , . , . rri, . Intellectual 

instruction, which it also eives. Ihis uncer- ^., 

tainty of nomenclature makes a real difficulty, 
both for foreigners who wish to understand and 
estimate the American educational system, and 
for Americans themselves. It makes clear think- 
ing about colleges and universities and their 
work, extremely difficult, and it is only proper to 
say that even intelligent Americans are them- 
selves quite often confused by this confusion of 
names and things. 

To the universities fall, in chief part, the tasks 
of promoting research and publication in all 
departments of letters and of science, of training 
men and women for the work of scientific investi- 
gation, of preparing teachers for the higher posts, 
and of equipping the future lawyers, physicians, 
engineers, and architects for their professional 
careers. Ministers of religion, for reasons pe- 
culiar to American social and political history, 
have thus far been trained chiefly apart from the 
universities in seminaries maintained by the 
[83] 



Intellectual 
Life 



The several religious bodies. The time is likely to 

American come, however, when the ministry will be relieved 
ana me from this limitation and disadvantage, and when 
all the chief universities will either maintain theo- 
logical faculties or ally theological seminaries 
with themselves. 

The universities, too, render to the community, 
and often to the government as well, expert service 
of the highest and most useful kind, and they are 
fertile in devising both methods of extending their 
influence and ways and means of bringing a gen- 
eral knowledge of topics in literature, science, and 
art, to large numbers of the adult population. 

The moral and intellectual influence of the 
universities, and of their representative scholars, 
is very great, and the universities themselves are 
generously, even munificently, supported. Some 
universities, especially in the Western States, are 
supported mainly by public tax; others, chiefly 
in the Eastern States, are supported by endow- 
ments and by the benefactions of individuals. 
The average of scholarship in American university 
teachers is very high, and the zeal for research 
produces annually hundreds of publications of 
[84] 



Intellectual 
Life 



various sorts, not a few of which are of more than The 
average merit. American 

While the American colleges were originally, " ' 
and for the most part continue to be, situated in 
villages, towns, or small cities, the universities 
flourish most vigorously in the larger centres 
of publication. The reason for this is plain, 
and Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen are witnesses 
of its cogency. As Cardinal Newman once 
pointed out, a large city, particularly a metropoli- 
tan city, is peculiarly fitted to be the seat of a 
university. Thither are drawn, by an irresistible 
force, those personalities and those influences 
which, quite as much as direct formal instruction, 
stimulate and cultivate the mind of the student 
who has passed through the earlier stages of his 
educational career. There are to be found the 
great collections of books and of art, there are the 
opportunities to see the best dramas and to hear 
the best music. There, either as residents or as 
occasional visitors, are to be seen and heard the 
men who are leaders in the world's life and 
thought, and who most powerfully direct and 
influence public opinion. This explains why 
[85] 



The 

American 
and the 
Intellectual 
Life 

The urban 
movement in 
America 



the most vigorous and productive American uni- 
versity life is to be found in New York and 
Chicago, and in the suburbs of Boston and San 
Francisco. 

Under modern conditions of life and labor, 
the population of the United States is being drawn 
with increasing rapidity into cities, which the 
United States census officially interprets as com- 
munities having a population of 8000 or more. 
This means not only that university life, but all 
American activity, is becoming more and more 
urban in character. .When the first United States 
census was taken in 1790 only about 130,000 
persons, or 3.3 per cent of the whole population, 
dwelt in places having 8000 or more inhabitants, 
and there were only six such places in the country. 
When the twelfth census was taken in 1900, 
25,000,000 persons, or over 33 per cent of the 
population, dwelt in places having 8000 or more 
inhabitants, and there were no fewer than 545 
such places. There were at that time 38 cities 
having 100,000 or more inhabitants each. Free 
mail delivery in rural districts, the rapid extension 
of the farm telephone system, and the constant 
[86] 



improvement of the roads, all tend to make farm The 

and village life more agreeable and less isolated; ^fnerican 

but still the rapid drift toward the cities goes on. "^^ ^^^ 

^ . , 1 ,1 • 111 I Intellectual 

Curiously enough, this remarkable urban con- ^.. 

. Life 
centration and growth has taken place without 

deflecting the centre of the country's population 

appreciably from the parallel of latitude on which 

it was when the first census was taken. At that 

time the centre of population was 23 miles east 

of Baltimore, and just north of the 39th parallel 

of latitude. From that 39th parallel — about 

the latitude of Lisbon or Palermo — the centre 

of population has never moved more than a few 

miles in either direction, although it has travelled 

about 520 miles west, and in 1900 was in the 

immediate vicinity of the town of Columbus, 

Indiana. The nation has become much more 

urban and much more western in the century and 

more that has passed, but the population of 

75,500,000 in 1900 was distributed on either side 

of the 39th parallel just as was the population of 

4,000,000 in 1790. 

These developments have powerfully affected 

the nation's history, and they have put a stamp 

[87] 



Intellectual 
Life 



The upon its culture and upon its public opinion. 

American Whatever else one sees of the United States, if he 

ana trie jg ^^ study its dominant and its representative 
characteristics, if he is to know its culture, he must 
know the greatest of its cities, New York, and he 
must know the West. 

New York as The highest culture — letters, art, science, 

the national • i r» t ^ 

metropolis social refanement — rests upon an economic 

basis, as does life itself. Intellectual vigor and 
dominance tread hard upon the heels of wealth 
and commercial supremacy. This was true in 
the ancient world and in the middle ages, and it 
is true still. The knowledge of how to use wealth 
follows, but does not precede, the possession of 
wealth itself. New York is the intellectual and 
the social capital of the United States, as it is 
the financial centre of the nation. Its immense 
masses of foreign-born citizens have not pre- 
vented a certain well-marked continuity in the 
history of New York ever since its commercial 
leadership was made secure by the opening of the 
Erie Canal and by the building of railroads. 

There is a superficial generalization quite com- 
mon to observers of America from abroad, that 
[88] 



Washington is the political capital, New York The 

the commercial capital, and Boston the intellec- American 

tual leader of American life. The small amount ^^^ ^^ 

!• X iT- !_• I- J T 1.1- • 1 X • ^- Intellectual 
oi truth which underlies this characterization . 

Life 
sometimes conceals its essential falsity. Wash- 
ington is the seat of government, but it is far from 
being a capital city as are London, Paris, and 
Berlin. Each year, however, it is taking on more 
and more of the attributes of a real capital, and it 
may well be that in time it will be a metropolis 
as well as the seat of government. Boston was 
the intellectual leader of America while and so 
long as its commercial prosperity was well marked 
and until the opening up of the great Western 
States to settlement completely altered the na- 
tion's centre of gravity, political and intellectual 
ahke. Since the Civil War (1861-65) the intel- 
lectual eminence of Boston has declined both 
relatively and absolutely. 

That of New York, on the contrary, has steadily 
and rapidly increased. The membership of the 
Century, the Players, and the Authors' Clubs 
includes an astonishingly large proportion of the 
representative directive force and capacity of the 
[89] 



and the 

Intellectual 

Life 



The nation in every part of the field of culture. Men 

American of letters, artists, scientific investigators, scholars 
of every type, find themselves drawn in increasing 
numbers to New York, to share its cosmopolitan 
and urbane intellectual life, and to feel the stim- 
ulus of its friendly criticism. The opportunities 
which New York offers to men of capacity are 
literally boundless. It possesses, at Columbia 
University, one of the world's greatest companies 
of scholars, and, at its museums of Art and of 
Natural History, two extraordinary and increas- 
ingly valuable collections of art and science. It 
has been for many years a musical centre of the 
first rank. It is catholic in its tastes, warm in its 
appreciation of excellence, and generous almost 
to a fault. Contrary to a widespread impression. 
New York offers, in its citizenship, numerous in- 
stances of men who have turned their backs upon 
the more gainful occupations to which they have 
been solicited, in order to devote themselves to 
the career in education, in letters, in art, or in 
science, which most strongly appealed to them. 

New York is so large and so many-sided and 
its intellectual activity is so widely diffused, that 
[90] 



the passing stranger is less strongly impressed by The 

it than by the lesser but more compactly or- American 

ganized intellectual life of a smaller place. The "^^ ^'^^ 

J Tit GLLBCtlAQJi 

vulgar and the bizarre happenings which are 

Lije 
sometimes blazoned abroad as characteristic of 

New York, are as infrequent as they are dis- 
agreeable, and they are no true index of the 
polished, refined, and highly intellectual social 
life of which New York is able to exhibit so much. 

The West is a vague term which is only partly The West 
geographical, partly political, and partly social, in 
its significance. It includes, generally speaking, 
the population living in Ohio, and the States 
west thereof to the Rocky Mountains, extending 
far enough south to include Missouri, Kansas, 
and Colorado. In the hands of this population 
lies the control of the political policy of the United 
States. When combined with the power and 
influence of New York, the West must always 
be irresistible. 

The West is very apt to exaggerate the diflFer- 

ences between itself and the population of the 

Eastern States. These differences are, in reality, 

more largely in modes of expression than in modes 

[91] 



and the 

Intellectual 

Life 



The of thought. The West is freer from the wish to 

American conform to conventions than the East, and its 
camaraderie is that of a population which has 
still about it the traditions of a pioneering period. 
The Western people are proud, intensely earnest, 
law-abiding, and ambitious in the highest degree 
for their sons and daughters. They are great 
readers of the best books and of the periodical 
literature of the day. They have developed, and 
are continually developing, writers and scholars 
as excellent as any in the land. They are well 
informed as to men and things abroad and inde- 
pendent in their judgments of them. The best 
critical literary newspaper in the country. The 
Dial, is published in Chicago, and one of the best- 
edited weekly journals. The Argonaut, is published 
in San Francisco. Among the universities in the 
West are some of the best and most active in 
America. 

To know New York, therefore, and to compre- 
hend the spirit of the West, are indispensable to 
an understanding of American civilization and 
American culture. 
The South The South, opce politically dominant in the 

[92] 



United States, had led a life apart since the close The 

of the Civil War, partly because of the war and its American 

immediate political and economic results, partly ^^ 

1 e ..X. ^ J -1 ui -i. u Intellectual 

because oi the stupendous social problem it has ^., 

Life 
had to face in the negro question. The economic 

results of the Civil War are rapidly giving way to 

a new industrial order, and in time the political 

results will, doubtless, similarly disappear. Only 

faith, patience, and courage can ever solve the 

negro question, and to that the South is now 

bravely addressing itself. The South is intensely 

American, and its social life reflects a charm and 

a grace that are all its own. The time will come 

when the South, too, will bear its full share in the 

upbuilding of the intellectual life in America. 

The dwellers beyond the Rocky Mountains in The Pacific 
the States of the Pacific slope have more char- 
acteristics in common with the Eastern than with 
the Western States. So solid is their civilization, 
so keen their intellectual activity, and so substan- 
tial their achievements in letters, in science, and 
in art, that it is hard to believe how young these 
States are in years. 

The Americans are now the most considerable 
[93] 



The 

American 
and the 
Intellectual 
Life 

The English 
language in 
America 



body of English-speaking people in the world. 
Despite their numbers and their wide geographi- 
cal distribution, their English speech is more nearly 
uniform than that of the inhabitants of England 
itself. No differences of intonation, accent, or 
vocabulary in the United States are so great as 
those between the Yorkshireman and the Cornish- 
man, or between the dwellers in Westmoreland 
and those in Devon. Many so-called American- 
isms are only survivals of sixteenth and seven- 
teenth century English usages which have disap- 
peared in the mother country. The exaggerated 
drawl of many Englishmen is as far from being 
good English as is the nasal twang of the uncul- 
tivated American. The purity of the language 
must rest with the educated classes who use the 
English speech and with the makers of its litera- 
ture, and it is as safe on one side of the Atlantic 
as on the other. The fact is not without signifi- 
cance that until the appearance of the monumen- 
tal dictionary now passing through the Oxford 
University Press, the best modern dictionaries of 
the English language were the work of American 
scholars. 

[94J 



The richest and most elegant modern prose is The 
that of the French academicians and of the Eng- American 
lish scholars trained under the classical traditions ^^^ 

r, ^-. PI ip/~ii»i x-1 A • LiiieiLCCtUClL 

oi Oxiord and oi Cambridge, lew Americans ^.. 
write so well as either of these, and if the classical 
tradition further weakens in the American colleges 
and universities, or perishes altogether, there will 
be fewer still in years to come. Only occasionally 
is an American book of even exceptional scholar- 
ship really well written. When it is both of 
genuine scholarship and well written, it finds 
readers and influences opinion very quickly, in 
Europe as well as in America. 

The American literary tradition centres largely American 

literature 
about New York and Boston. Irving, Cooper, 

Bryant, Poe, Curtis, and Stedman belong to New 
York. Whittier, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Emer- 
son, Holmes, and Lowell belong to Boston. Whit- 
man stands outside both, as do the few names that 
one remembers from the South, the West, and the 
Pacific slope. Of these Poe was the first to win a 
European reputation, and Poe and Whitman are 
the most read and the most admired in other 
countries. These writers, and others less cele- 
[95] 



and the 

Intellectual 

Life 



The brated, have made a very respectable contribu- 

Amencan tjon to the hterature of the Enghsh language 
during the nineteenth century. 

Enough has been said, perhaps, to justify, in 
considerable measure, the predictions of David 
Ramsay. If the intellectual history of America 
is not yet illustrious, it is dignified, serious, and 
significant. Neither the political contests nor 
the economic struggles of a new people in a new 
land have checked the tendency inborn in man to 
express his nature, his aspirations, and his reflec- 
tions, in the forms of science, of letters, and of art. 
The American's devotion to education, and his 
zeal and generosity in its behalf, are quite without 
precedent. The intellectual life is familiar in 
America, and its power and influence will steadily 
increase. 

The typical Who is this American who, whatever his limi- 

American . i , . r. i i n 

tations and his faults, has so many excellent traits 

and so fine a nature ? He is not the man who, 
suddenly grown rich, disports himself vulgarly 
in the public gaze; he is not the boastful Philis- 
tine, who is ignorant of the world's civilization, 
[96] 



and despises what he not does not know; he is The 

not the decadent of the large cities who wastes American 

his patrimony and his hfe in excess and frivohty. 

ill tPilcctUdL 

All these exist in America, but their notoriety is 
unfortunately out of all proportion to their num- 
bers. The typical American is he who, whether 
rich or poor, whether dwelling in the North, South, 
East, or West, whether scholar, professional man, 
merchant, manufacturer, farmer, or skilled worker 
for wages, lives the life of a good citizen and a 
good neighbor; who believes loyally and with all 
his heart in his country's institutions, and in the 
underlying principles on which these institutions 
are built; who directs both his private and his 
public life by sound principles; who cherishes 
high ideals; and who a;ims to train his children 
for a useful life and for their country's service. 
These, and not the accidental and unusual types, 
are the Americans of whom I speak. Fortunately, 
there are many millions of them in the United 
States. 



[971 



INDEX 



Achievements, First-class, not 
numerous, 70. 

American, The, as a political 
type, 3-31 ; conservative, 23. 

American, The, and the intel- 
lectual life, 67-97. 

American, The, apart from his 
government, '35-63; in the 
domain of liberty, 35-37 ; his 
self-reliance, 37-38; his op- 
portunities, 39; attitude of, 
toward money, 39-41 ; his 
emotional temperament, 41- 
43; a Christian people, 44- 
46; religious freedom, 47-48; 
high standards of business 
honor, 49-51 ; in business, 
51-52; as a citizen of the 
world, 55-57 ; his law-abiding 
spirit, 60-62; the typical, 
96-97. 

American people, Variety in 
the, 6. 

American type, Unity of the, 
3,6. 

Americans, The ten or twelve 
greatest, 70-71. 

Anglo-Saxon impulse. Persist- 
ence of the, 3-6 ; its source 
and development, 4 ; its ex- 
pression in America, 5-6, 24 ; 
57. 

Appropriations, Congressional, 
Unifying effect of, 17. 

Argonaut, The, 92. 

Aristotle, 74. 

Art and architecture, 71-72. 



Bagehot, Walter, on American Jfidgx 

sovereignty, 19. 
Boston, 54 ; not the intellectual 

leader, 89. 
Brewer, David Josiah, on the 

religious character of the 

American people, 45-46. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 95. 
Burgess, Prof. J. W., on indi- 
vidual liberty, 18. 
Business, The conduct of, 51- 

52. 
Business honor, High standards 

of, 49-51. 

Calvin, John, Influence of, in 
America, 69. 

Christianity of the American 
people, 44-47. 

'Church, No established, 46, 48. 

Cleveland, Grover, 13; and the 
Chicago outbreak in 1894, 60. 

College, The American, 79-81. 

Columbia University, 74, 90. 

Columbus, 45. 

Congress, Powers of, deter- 
mined by the courts, 28. 

Conservatism of the American 
people, 23. 

Constitution of United States, 
5, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 28, 29, 
35; the one particular char- 
acteristic of the, 19; persist- 
ence of the, 23; the rule of 
the, 24-25. 

Conventions, National, 14. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 95. 



[101] 



Index Corporations, Industrial, 49; 

the large, 52-53. 
Cromer, Earl of, quoted, 76. 
Culture, Emerson on, 66; the 

basis of, in America, 67-68. 
Curtis, George William, 95. 

Dangers, Possible, to American 

civilization, 57-58. 
De Tocqueville on meditation, 

73. 
Declaration of Independence of 

1776, 5, 45. 
Declaration of Rights of 1765, 5. 
Declaration of 1775, 5. 
Demagogue, The, a by-product 

of democracy, 77. 
Democracy, Pasteur on, 5. 
Department of Agriculture, 

Beneficent work of the, 17. 
Descartes, 74. 
Dial, The, 92. 
Dictionaries, The best modern, 

American, 94. 
Draft Riots of 1863, 60. 

Economic classes. No fixed and 
stable, 38. 

Economic forces and the na- 
tional life, 21-23. 

Education, Belief in the prac- 
tical results of, 68 ; the higher, 
77-86. 

Educational activity, 76-77. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 70, 71. 

Electoral College, The, and the 
Constitution, 15. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, on cul- 
ture, 66 ; one of the greatest 
Americans, 71, 95. 

Emotional temperament of the 
American, 41-43. 

English common law. Power of 
the, 6. 



English language. Influence of 
the, 6 ; in America, 94-95. 



possess 
power. 



Federal courts, The, 

the full judicial 

28-29. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 70, 71. 
Free-silver movement. The, 

42. 

Garfield, James Abram, Popu- 
lar sympathy with, 42. 

Gibbs, Willard, 71. 

Government, Hamilton on 
good, 2. 

Government, The, as a unifying 
force, 17 ; outside forces more 
powerful than, 21. 

Granger movement. The, 42. 

Greenback movement, The, 42. 

Hamilton, Alexander, viii, 2, 

58, 71, 75. 
Harvard University, 74. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 95. 
Hegel, 73. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 95. 

Idealism vs. practicality, 41; 
satisfaction in, 70. 

Independent vote. The, 13. 

Individual liberty national, 18 ; 
not controlled by govern- 
ment, 20-21. 

Intelligence widespread, 55-57. 

Interstate commerce, 22. 

Interstate migration. Effect of, 
7-8. 

Irving, Washington, 95. 

Jackson, Andrew, 15, 27. 
Jeiferson, Thomas, 71. 
Judiciary, The, as an organ of 
government, 27-29. 



[102] 



La Farge, 72. 

Laplace, 74. 

Law, Rule of, 30. 

Law-abiding spirit, The, 60-61. 

Lawlessness decreasing, 60; 
Lincoln on, 61. 

Laws, Reckless making of, 59. 

Leaders, Public, outside of the 
government, 20-21. 

Lincoln, Abraham, on the defi- 
nition of liberty, 34; on 
lawlessness, 01; as a leader, 
63 ; one of the greatest Ameri- 
cans, 71. 

Lincoln's maxim, 58. 

Literature, American, 95-96. 

Longfellow, Henry Wads- 
worth, 95. 

Lowell, James Russell, 66, 95. 

McKinley, William, The shoot- 
ing of, 42. 

Maine, Unreasonable rage at 
destruction of the, 42. 

Marshall, John, on the judi- 
ciary, 27; 71. 

Mayflower compact of 1620, 5, 
45. 

Migration, Interstate, 7-8. 

Mob, The, and the people, 62- 
63. 

Money, The American cares 
little for, 39-40. 

Mormons, The, 48. 

Negro question. The, 93. 

New York, 54; as the national 

metropolis, 88-91. 
Newman, Cardinal, on the 

university, 85. 
Newspaper press. Influence of 

the better, 9-1 1 ; character of 

the baser, 11-12. 
Newton, 74. 



Opportunities of American Index 

life, 38-39. 
Optimism of the American, 61- 

62. 
Ordinance of 1787, 5. 
Organizations, voluntary, of 

national scope. Influence of, 

8-9. 

Pacific slope. The, 93. 

Parkman, Francis, 71. 

Parliamentary procedure, 

Knowledge of, 9. 

Parties, The two great political, 
12-17. 

Party name. Attachment to, 
12-13. 

Party organizations very pow- 
erful, 13-14, 16-17. 

Pasteur on democracy, 5. 

Paternalism resented by the 
American, 36-37. 

Penn, William, 45. 

People, Exploitation of the, a 
danger, 43. 

Philosophy and the theoretical 
sciences, 73-74. 

Plato, 74. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 95. 

Political action, Uniformity of 
forms of, 16-17. 

Political waves. Emotional, 
42-43. 

Popularity vs. worth, 75-76. 

Population, The centre of, 87. 

Post ofifice. The, and the rural 
dweller, 36. 

Presidency, The, 25-27. 

President and Vice-President, 
how chosen, 15-16. 

Principles not men, A govern- 
ment of, 29-31. 

Prohibition movement, The, 43. 

Prosperity, Industrial, 22. 



[103] 



Index " Pu^'ic " ^°d " governmen- 

tal " not interchangeable 
words, 21. 
Puritanism, New England, the 
foundation of American life 
and culture, 69. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 45. 
Ramsay, David, on literature 

in America, 67, 96. 
Reflection impossible, 73; place 

of, in American life, 75-78. 
Religious freedom, 47-48. 
Root, Elihu, 21. 
Russell, Gov. William E., 

21. 

Saint-Gaudeus, 72. 

Scientific activity, 72-73. 

Self-expression the ambition of 
the American, 40. 

Self-reliance of the American, 
37-38. 

Senators, United States, Elec- 
tion of, 16. 

South, The, 92-93. 

Sovereignty not in the Ameri- 
can government, 19; behind 
the Constitution, 20. 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 
95. 



Tacitus on the German people, 

4. 
Taney, Chief Justice, on the 

English courts, 28. 
Tariff, The, 23. 
Tilden, Samuel Jones, 13. 

United States, The, in law and 
in fact a Christian nation, 
47. 

Universities, the American, 
Philosophy in, 74 ; history of, 
78-79, 81-83; tasks and in- 
fluence of, 83-86. 

University, Twofold use of the 
name, 82-83. 

University of California, 74. 

University of Paris, 79. 

Urban movement. The, 86-87. 

Washington, George, The 

warning of, 58-59; 70,71. 
Washington not a metropolis, 

89. 
Webster, Daniel, 71. 
West, The, as representative 

of the United States, 53-55 ; 

91-92. 
Whitman, Walt, 95. 
Whitney, William Dwight, 71. 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 95. 



[104] 



True and False Democracy 

By NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

President of Columbia University 

Containing : True and False Democracy 

The Education of Public Opinion 
Democracy and Education 

Cloth i2mo $i.oo net 

"A little volume this of pregnant thought, plain vigorous speech, 
and sound Americanism. Among the topics touched are : the need 
of a real aristocracy, definition of public property, the socialist propa- 
ganda, the problem of wealth, the passing of class distinctions, the bad 
citizen, the relation of the individual to public opinion, the party 
system, the leader and the boss, the spread of democracy, education 
and politics, the good citizen and the imperfections of democracy. In 
it are contained some of the most valuable principles making for good 
citizenship that were ever given to the public." 

— The Courier Journal, Louisville. 

" They present one of the 'most masterful discussions of the hopes 
and fears of the best thinkers, and are most suggestive of the way to 
transfigure fear to hope by educating public opinion and the ennobling 
of all educational activities." — Journal of Education, 

" The book is above all stimulating because, while it does not spare 
the evils in present conditions, it is thoroughly optimistic in tone . . . 
full of careful observations and sane comments of value to every 
citizen." — New York Tribune. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK 



The Outlook for the 
Average Man 

By ALBERT SHAW 

Editor of "The Review of Reviews" 
Author of " Political Problems in American Development," 

ETC. 

Cloth 127710 240 pp. Price $1,2^ net; by mail, $i.SJ 

"All the foundations and landmarks are shifting, and in the new 
economic conditions and demands the young man, who is the average 
man of Dr. Shaw's special interest, is in a measure lost to the bearings. 
How to find himself and the great opportunities that await him is the 
kindly message which Dr. Shaw proposes to bring him in this work, 
and it is certainly strongly delivered. It carries on the face of it the 
true scholar's insight and outlook and is full of encouragement and 
good cheer for all who can receive it. There was never a finer field, 
nobler opportunities, for the young man than at this very day, but a 
finer training to meet them is the imperative demand." 

— I?es Moines Capital. 

" One of the most practical and useful little volumes that has been 
issued for a long time. ... If our young men could be taught to 
fully understand that, as Mazzini said, life is a mission and duty, there- 
fore, its highest law, and that in the comprehension of that mission 
and fulfilment of that duty lie their means to success, there would 
certainly be considerably less moral and material failures in the younger 
generation than at present is the case. . . . We sincerely repeat that 
this little volume is one of the most useful and most inspiring that can 
fall into the hands of the working classes. It is full of plain, practical 
truths and is not in any sense dogmatic." — Labor World. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOBZ 



As Others See Us 

A ^UDY OF PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES 

By JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS 

Author of "The Social Unrest" 

Illustrated Cloth $1.75 «^^'' h ^^ail, $iSg 

During the last century and a quarter several hundred volumes have 
been written by foreigners concerning our government, institutions, 
politics, education, manners, customs, voice, and general behavior. 
Coming from all nations of Europe, many of these criticisms are amus- 
ing, some almost ludicrous, while others furnish valuable material for a 
serious estimate of what America is in the eyes of the rest of the world. 

In his new book, « As Others See Us," the author attempts to test 
the value of foreign criticism against our country, using this criticism 
as material through which the social movement in the United States 
may be measured. 

From Chastellux, through De Tocqueville and James Bryce, to the 
last book by the critic Archer, he tries to ask and answer the question : 
How far have these critics been telling the truth about our American 
character and institutions? 

The placing of these critics side by side promises a great deal of 
amusement, but it should also furnish valuable material for a serious 
estimate of what America is in the eyes of the rest of the world. 

John Graham Brooks is widely known as the author of "The Social 
Unrest," one of the most thought-provoking discussions of modern 
social conditions, of which Mr. Bliss Perry, the editor of The Atlantic 
Monthly, said : " A fascinating book — to me the clearest, sanest, most 
helpful discussion of economic and human problems I have read for 
years." 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 PIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK 



Races and Immigrants in America 

By JOHN R. COMMONS 

University of Wisconsin 
Cloth ismo 242 pages $i.£o net 

" The colonial race elements are considered, brief chapters are given to 
the negro and recent immigrants, and industry, labor, city life, crime, poverty, 
and politics are treated in their relation to the maintenance or destruction of 
democracy. Professor Commons' purpose appears to be to summarize the 
latest available data upon his subject and leave conclusions largely to the 
reader. In line with this purpose is a valuable list of authorities consulted. 
It is certain that the book will be of great service to ministers, sociologists, 
and all who are concerned in the problems of the day." — Chicago Interior. 

"The work is scientific as to method and popular in style, and forms a 
very useful handbook about the American population." — Dial. 

"Well fortified throughout by statistics, and evidencing a wide range of 
observation, the great merit of the volume is its sensibleness." — Nation. 

" While not profound, it is a brief and concise treatment of serious pub- 
lic problems, and is characterized by the good judgment and general sanity 
which are evident in Professor Commons' works in general. The general 
point of view and conclusions of the book are undoubtedly sound, and it 
will serve a useful purpose in introducing to many the serious study of our 
racial and immigration problems. To one who can spend but a brief time 
in reading along the line of these problems, but who wishes a general survey 
of them all, there is no book that can be more heartily commended." — 
Charles A. Ellwood in The American Journal of Sociology. 

" This is an extremely valuable study of the greatest problem which the 
United States has to solve to-day ; perhaps greater than that of all the ages 
that have preceded it, namely, the assimilation of large numbers of dissimilar 
races into a composite race. . . . To-day in the city of New York sixty-six 
different tongues are spoken. A century hence there will probably be only 
one. And throughout the country there are communities in which the Eng- 
lish is not the dominant language. But the railroad, the post-office, and the 
telegraph as they bind them in interest will bind them in speech. It is in this 
view that the book is of inestimable value." — American Historical Magazine. 

" Professor Commons has long been a diligent and penetrating student 
of industrial conditions in this country, and particularly of the labor move- 
ment. His investigations in this latter field have brought him face to face 
with the situation that confronts the arriving immigrant, and he has been 
led to inquire into the varying abilities of different races to make use of the 
opportunities presented in this land for their advancement. . . . We do 
not recall another book of its size that presents so much important and 
essential information on this vital topic," — Review of Reviews. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK 



C 310 88 











kV^ °<^ "'"' ^° '^'^ * . . . • aV 



:• ^-s-.J 



'^^' 









.^^ K °% 
<^ •$>-, ■^^ 




^^ 



4 o^ 



5 












^°-nK. 'J 



^0^ 









HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 

^ AUG 88 

!^^ N. MANCHESTER, 
'"^ INDIANA 46962 





